Remember Micah Urbanoso, the monkey-like child that DAILY STAR readers had helped to recover from illness about two years ago?

Police and social workers late Thursday rescued now 10-year-old Micah, and her brother Michael, 15, from a carnival in Barangay Isio, Cauayan, where they were caged and displayed in a freak show, where crowds laughed and jeered at them, Kabankalan City social welfare officer Adelina Tomaro said yesterday. Micah, whose features and actions are like that of a monkey, and her brother who has similar features, were thin, dirty and smelly when they were rescued by policemen and social workers from Kabankalan City and Cauayan town, from the Lotlot Perya owned by Carlos Guinanao, Tomaro said.

The children, who are from Bantayan, Kabankalan, were displayed like zoo animals and audiences were charged P10 to see them, Tomaro said.

She also said that when she received a call from Cauayan social welfare officer Leonida Guido saying that the children were part of a freak show of a carnival, they immediately mounted the rescue.

The children were brought to Kabankalan City yesterday where they were bathed and fed by social welfare workers.

Their mother Editha Urbanoso was also called in and informed that the children had been rescued.

Editha admitted that she had let the carnival owner take her children with him on Jan. 28 after he said he would take care of them and would give her P2,000 a month.

Guinanao's carnival was in Bantayan for the fiesta in the barangay when she met him, the mother said.

The mother was crying and said she was forced to let her children go because they needed the money.

Tomaro said charges could be filed against the carnival owner for child abuse and exploitation.

When Micah was 8 years old she was rushed to the Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital in Bacolod City malnourished and suffering from Keratoconjunctivitis, an infection of the eye that has ruptured her cornea.

Her parents Editha and Bonifacio, a sugar farm worker, could not afford to meet her medical needs but many Good Samaritans, including DAILY STAR readers, came to her rescue and soon she had regained weight and began to walk. When she left the hospital her parents were hired by a kind-hearted Bacoleña so they would have money to care for their children but in April last year they decided to return to Bantayan and again suffered from grinding poverty.

Tomaro said after the children were rescued she called Editha's former employer and told her what happened and immediately the woman said they would be welcome to return to Bacolod to their old jobs.

Editha had told the DAILY STAR two years ago that Michael had attempted to study in a barangay school in Kabankalan but he only lasted a week, as he could not stand the pressure of studying and being mocked by his schoolmates.

Editha said when she was pregnant with Michael and Micah she used to sleep under the shade of banana trees, a few meters away from their hut, at noon, which is believed to have caused two of her children to look like monkeys.

But Dr. Miguelito Aquino, Micah' doctor two years ago, said she looks like a primate because she is suffering from microcephaly where the circumference of the head is smaller than usual.

It is believed to have been caused by a viral infection her mother may have suffered while she was pregnant, he said.

Genetic disorders and severe malnutrition can also cause microcephaly.

Micah suffers from a form of retardation that causes her to move like a primate, he said. She is unable to talk, she only grunts to attract attention. Her tongue is short, her mother also said.*CPG

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