The two children rescued from a carnival freak show will undergo psychiatric evaluation to determine the extent of the trauma caused by their experience, Kabankalan City social welfare officer Adelina Tomaro said yesterday.

She said the psychiatric test is being conducted to determine how the two children can be further helped. She said, however, that, externally, they appear to be all right.

Micah Urbanoso,10, and her brother, Michael, 15, who suffer from microcephaly where the circumference of the head is small, were rescued by Kabankalan and Cauayan policemen and social workers from the Lotlot Perya where they were caged and shown to the public for a fee. The presence of the two at a carnival in Barangay Isio, Cauayan, where crowds laughed and jeered at them, was reported to us by the Cauayan Social Welfare Office and we immediately acted on it, Tomaro said.

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, she said.

The children are from Bantayan, Kabankalan.

Two years ago DAILY STAR readers had helped Micah who was brought to the Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Hospital suffering from severe malnutrition.

Tomaro said the children along with their parents are expected to move to Bacolod. Their parents have been offered their old jobs by a Bacolod resident who had helped them before.*CPG

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