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I am still in shaken up. I am actually struggling writing this down. But here is a story I have so often read about, but never thought would happen in my own house, with my children at stake. Here are the events, just to update the details from my brother's email. I obviously did not get to give him clear details for we were so preoccupied with all the nitty gritty that has to be done to respond to this particular incident. Nonetheless, I, of course, thank Carl for taking the initiative to inform everyone he thought should know.

March 3, Monday - Ken and I got home and saw Ricci's arm with bruises that appears to be a mark from a tight grip. Usually, Ricci tells me how she gets hurt, but when I asked her this time, she just said she doesn't know or tried not to answer.

March 5, Wednesday - Ken and I got home and again saw a small wound on Ricci's forehead. Again, we asked her of what happened and we got the same response.

For these two incidents, I kept asking the yaya how the bruises and the wound happened. Fishing out, not showing her that we suspect her of hurting Ricci. On both occasions, the yaya just responded with "Hindi ko nga alam e. Hindi ko napansin. HIndi naman umiyak..." and so on, the typical defensive answers. But despite her sounding guilty, I told myself that it could be one of three things: 1-di nya binabantayan mabuti yung bata; 2-wala syang pakialam kung masugatan since she doesn't seem to know (daw) how Ricci gets hurt; or 3-sya mismo ang nanakit sa bata. Ken and I were getting ready to pin these on her, though, but we needed concrete evidence. We talked about getting a cheap surveillance camera and all that. We were actually trying to be patient (and you have no idea how hard it is to wait on this if you are the parent of the child being abused), and we wanted to do the smartest thing for the situation. I took pictures of the bruises and the scratch.....

March 6, Thursday - Ken and I arrived about 9 pm with Manang Linda, our long-time helper who is based in my brother and sister-in-law's house (Carl and Rox). The front door was unlocked, which caused Ken to worry. He opened the door to the garage for me and ran up to our room immediately to check on the kids.

Here's the usual scenario when we get home: Yaya Josie would be in the room and the kids would be in a corner somewhere hiding and waiting for us to look for them.

The scene was different on March 6, though, as the yaya was nowhere in the room. The kids were hiding, but without the yaya to be seen, that caused panic to us. And then there were cheering and jumping when we found them in the bathroom of the master's bedroom. Then Cushie said, "Ate just bought something." I said, "What? She left you here?" Although Ken already had already thought that the yaya was gone, he hurried to the maid's room to find that her things are no longer there - a confirmation. I asked Cushie if he knew the time the yaya left, he responded, "7". He's 5, but he can tell time, so it's highly possibly that the yaya has been gone since 7 pm that night. That's 2 hours of my children being by themselves!

The second floor of the house was upside down - my mom's closet of curtains, bedsheets and blankets, my closet -my bags, hats, clothes, the playroom (can you believe it?)...every room in the 2nd floor!!!! She tried to get anything of value that she can trade for cash. She got my cellphone (which is already deactivated), my Sony Cybershot digital camera (with pictures from Gael's birthday, Ken's birthday and more of family's), about 400++ cash, groceries (fresh meat), Ken's charger. So far, these are the items we found missing. We haven't had the time to check the entire house yet because we preoccupied with laying down options for the next steps we should do.

We called ferry transits and asked when the next trips to Cotabato (her hometown) are. We have printed photos of the yaya (thank God, Carl has copies. I had some, but, yun nga, my camera was stolen. So the pictures I took of Ricci's bruises and scratch are also gone). We have had the yaya blottered already.

We're really serious about this. I am asking everyone for whatever help you can give to find her. I now realize that when people send emails with this could happen to you's, you should not take the warning for granted. This, something so prevalent, happened to us, to my darling Ricci. Please help us, even by just disseminating this information.

Thank you,

Carol Bustos-Santiago

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Information about the yaya:

Name: Josephine Gatan

Age: 43

Height:?

Weight:?

Skin color: somewhere between fair and kayumanggi-ish

Hair: dyed-brown long, curly

Eyes:?