Former Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW) and singer Sarah Balabagan revealed that she couldn’t get custody of her child from her older brother without paying a hefty amount.
In her social media post, Sarah revealed that her youngest child, Stephen, was being held by her brother, who took care of the kid when she decided to travel to America to marry her now husband, Jun Sereno.
According to her, she was supposed to go home, but their sudden wedding prompted her to stay in America and petition her children to become an American resident.
However, she failed to petition Stephen as he was still too young to travel at that time.
Sarah said that she was supposed to hire a nanny for Stephen, but her older brother insisted that he would take care of her youngest.
She thought that her older brother wanted to pay back the support they received from her after getting a part of the P5-M she received from a production company to get the rights to her biopic “The Sarah Balabagan Story.”
Unfortunately, when Sarah was already in the process of petitioning Stephen, her brother allegedly asked her to pay P2.4-M to recoup the money they spent taking care of her child.
“Since my youngest child Stephen was only 17months old, I planned to let my Nanny take care of him, but my mother who was living with me at that time told me that my older brother and his wife are volunteering to take care of Stephen. So, knowing I was able to help them financially in the past, especially when my life story was made into a true to life movie in 1997 after my ordeal in the Middle East and that their older daughter lived with me for many years for free, I thought they just wanted to help me out,” she said.
“Though they did not ask for monthly support, every time they ask for money for Stephen’s needs, my husband and I made sure to send money to them. Now, my three children are already here in the US. We were able to get them by God’s grace in 2018. Stephen was left behind, because when we’re about to petition him, the wife of my brother kept on begging me to let them take care of Stephen and I listened to them out of my respect. When I became a US citizen, we decided to file Stephen’s petition and by God’s Grace it was approved. Now we are just waiting for the scheduled interview at US embassy in Manila. I need to bring Stephen to Manila, but my brother refused to let go of Stephen.
“So, I filed a petition to the court of appeals, but still needed to go to the family court in Cotabato. Their lawyer asked for a settlement through my lawyer. They are asking for a refund for the cost of taking care of my son for 10yrs. At first , they asked for twenty thousand pesos (P20,000.00) a month or P2,400,000.00 which I can’t afford. So, now they asked for P10,000.00 or P1,200,000.00 for the ten (10) years they took care of my son. Finally, I agreed in a condition that I will pay every month the amount of P10,000.00 for 10 years, which is the best I can do for I am only a part time worker, working 20hrs a week in the night shift, because I need to take care of my two children in the morning. My husband’s salary is spent in our everyday expenses and to pay the bills and rent. My supposed to be brother is asking for P1.200,000.00 in cash to let my son go,”
To lessen her expenses, Sarah decided to organize a fundraising to gather enough funds to pay her older brother.