Cover This year’s Tatler Ball will benefit the Child Protection Network (Photo: courtesy of the Child Protection Network)
This year’s Tatler Ball will benefit the Child Protection Network (Photo: courtesy of the Child Protection Network)
1 / 1
Tatler Ball 2026 raises funds for the Child Protection Network Foundation, whose doctors say the true measure of a nation is how its children are doing
Imagine the worst day of a child’s life. Now imagine that the next thing they must do is walk into a hospital unit and tell strangers about it. What happens in the following hour, according to the doctors of the Child Protection Network (CPN) Foundation, can shape the rest of that child’s life.
Tatler Philippines turns 25 this year, and as always, it is celebrating with the Tatler Ball. But a milestone this big deserves a cause that outlasts the evening. That cause is CPN, and the goal is to raise PHP 15 million. Giving is made even more meaningful by the magazine covering all costs, ensuring that 100 per cent of guest contributions go directly to the network. Leading by example, Tatler Philippines will kick off the fundraising effort with a donation of PHP 500,000.
The numbers explain why. One in five Filipino children has experienced sexual violence, and one in 12 has experienced some form of online sexual exploitation in the past year. Against that, CPN has spent more than 27 years building a defence. Through its network of 173 Women and Children Protection Units, it has helped provide care to more than 153,000 abused children and adolescents.
It began with one hospital. In 1997, the Child Protection Unit of the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) opened its doors, offering medical, social, psychological and psychiatric care, and later legal services. Then the caseload became impossible to ignore. “In three years, the number of abused children that we were seeing doubled,” says Dr Bernadette Madrid, CPN’s executive director and founding head of the unit. “We then also realised that one hospital giving these services is not enough.”
The answer was a network. The struggle now, Dr Madrid says, is keeping every unit open, resourced and consistent. The emotional wounds make that harder still. “We treat the injuries, we help ensure the safety of the child, but the emotional harm takes a longer journey,” she says. “We do not only want these children to survive; we want them to heal and to thrive.”
More from Tatler: Tatler Ball Philippines: get to know the beneficiaries through the years
Above Every child who walks into a Child Protection Unit finds doctors, social workers and mental health professionals ready to help (Photo: courtesy of the Child Protection Network)
Every child who walks into a Child Protection Unit finds doctors, social workers and mental health professionals ready to help (Photo: courtesy of the Child Protection Network)
1 / 1
For Dr Princess “Ces” Gairanod, a forensic paediatrician and child protection specialist for CPN, that journey starts with a refusal to repeat the harm. A child who walks into a unit has already lived through “some of the worst events in their life.” She explains: “Our response to abuse should never become an experience where the child feels helpless and powerless once again.” So the care is multidisciplinary: doctors for injuries, social workers for safety, mental health professionals for recovery, and child protection services and law enforcement behind them. The point is not merely recovery. It is to make children “own their futures.”
She is blunt about what abuse takes. It is not one moment, she says. It “can disrupt their education. It can change their view of relationships. It can change their ability to imagine a future for themselves.”
See also: Gen.T Summit 2026: all the news, insights and highlights from Bangkok
Above Legal counselling offered at the Child Protection Unit of the Philippine General Hospital (Photo: courtesy of the Child Protection Network)
Legal counselling offered at the Child Protection Unit of the Philippine General Hospital (Photo: courtesy of the Child Protection Network)
1 / 1
Above Mental health services offered at the Child Protection Unit of the Philippine General Hospital (Photo: courtesy of the Child Protection Network)
Mental health services offered at the Child Protection Unit of the Philippine General Hospital (Photo: courtesy of the Child Protection Network)
1 / 1
Dr Norieta Calma-Balderrama, a psychiatrist who heads mental health and wellness at the Child Protection Unit of PGH, explains why that damage is so easy to miss. Small children cannot always say what happened, so it surfaces sideways: a child regresses, lashes out or complains of stomach aches and back pain. Adults see a behaviour problem. She sees a child in distress. “Trauma actually lives in the body,” she says, and it lingers unless it is treated. Depression and post-traumatic stress disorder are the two conditions her team meets most often.
Then there is the weight of kahihiyan—the shame that can silence a family. But the “child is more important than all of this,” Calma-Balderrama says. Children are told it is not their fault, that they are not damaged and that their dreams are still theirs to chase.
Here is the catch. The Philippines has only about 70 child psychiatrists, so the need for mental health professionals is acute.
Which is why the doctors keep returning to prevention. “We don’t have to wait for children to be abused before we can intervene,” says Dr Gairanod, who points to CPN’s work with schools, local governments and communities. A world where every abused child is well cared for is a good one, she says, but “maybe a better world would be a world where people chose to act before abuse happened.”
Above A country’s well-being is measured by how its children are doing (Photo: courtesy of the Child Protection Network)
A country’s well-being is measured by how its children are doing (Photo: courtesy of the Child Protection Network)
1 / 1
Each PHP 60,000 donation provides one child who has experienced abuse, including Online Sexual Abuse or Exploitation of Children, with a full year of care. That means medical and legal assistance, psychological therapy and continuing telemedicine follow-ups.
Donors may never meet the child their gift reaches, and Dr Gairanod is candid about that. “You may never know their names. You may never hear their stories,” she says, “but the support you give ensures that when they reach out for help, there’s somewhere they can go to.”
Dr Madrid, for her part, ends with a question. “How do we know how well a country is doing? You look at how its children are doing.” Are they safe? Are they loved? Are they healthy? “The prosperity of a society is not just about its wealth,” she says. “It’s the truest measure of how well our nation is doing.”
NOW READ
Meet the 2025 Tatler Impact awardees: EJ Obiena, Mahar Lagmay, Nanette Medved-Po
Tatler Ball 2025: step onto the red carpet with poise, grace and gravitas
Tatler Most Influential Philippines 2026: the Filipinos making an impact across industries
Angela Nicole Regis Guiral is a digital editor at Tatler Philippines. She studied journalism and has since written features that look closely at how culture, lifestyle and social impact converge, while occasionally wandering into the worlds of style and travel.
Curated for you
The stories, profiles, and cultural moments featured on our Instagram feed
