Freddie’s girlfriend stopped from leaving Phl

MANILA, Philippines - Even before singer Freddie Aguilar told the public about his 16-year-old girlfriend, the Department of Social Welfare and Development stopped her from leaving the country, a DSWD official said yesterday.

DSWD Region 4-B director Wilma Naviamos had raised a red flag when she rejected the girl’s application last Aug. 29 to travel to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to watch Aguilar’s concert, said DSWD Protective Services Bureau director Dulfie Shalim.

The girl wanted to travel with Aguilar, unaccompanied by her parents, Shalim said. When the DSWD Region 4-B rejected the girl’s application on Sept. 5, the girl’s mother showed up two weeks later to make an appeal.

“The DSWD region office there took the initiative to give counseling to the girl’s mother about allowing her child to travel out of the country without a parent and with a man,” Shalim said.

The official said social workers counseled the mother on the “risks and consequences that her child may encounter in going out of the country.”

Shalim said the DSWD Region 4-B has yet to make a report on a visit the Protective Services Bureau ordered to determine the role the girl’s parents played in the 60-year-old singer’s romance with the girl.

Shalim said if it comes out that the parents coerced the girl to have an affair, they will be guilty of child exploitation. At the very least, they could be held liable for neglect, and the girl “will be a ward of the state,” the official said.