Magundayao Case: Child Loses School Year Due to Abducting Mother

As exclusively reported by Diario16+, Gerard and Laia were scheduled to return to Spain on September 3 aboard Turkish Airlines flight TK1855. Neither child arrived. Just days later, on September 9, they were expected to begin the school year at Bellaterra School in Barcelona. Alarmed, their father immediately arranged an emergency meeting with school officials, who warned him that the children could lose their spots. Ultimately, that’s exactly what happened.

 

However, what no one expected was the worst of it: the abducting mother, Regina Magundayao Valdez, did not even know which grade her son was supposed to enter. Both the school and the father were aware that Regina took little interest in the children’s education. For starters, she had only accompanied them to school in Spain once or twice (and on one of those occasions, she was reprimanded for abandoning them halfway to the classroom). Still, it came as a shock when she enrolled Gerard in preschool for the 2024–25 academic year, instead of placing him in first grade. It's hard to fathom such irresponsibility from a mother—especially one who has sole custody and has separated the children from their sisters and friends.

 

As a result, when Gerard’s classmates begin second grade in Spain this September, he will only be starting first grade in the Philippines, where the school year runs from June to April.

 

 

What’s especially unfair about this situation is that the boy is a brilliant student in mathematics, where he shows natural talent in calculation and spatial reasoning, but he has a language development disorder that had been treated in Spain for three years. Regina Magundayao Valdez cannot claim ignorance—her signature appears on all of Gerard’s therapy documents, and she even accompanied him to the specialized center a few times after school. Now, the therapy has been abruptly cut-off, and the mother appears unconcerned about the long-term consequences.

 

The news has raised concern for the father and the boy’s sisters, as it clearly shows the mother’s lack of interest—not only in her son's academic progress but also in his overall development.

 

 

The school year in Spain ends in late June. Therefore, if Regina were to return to Spain immediately with the children, she could request the reinstatement of Gerard’s school placement and enroll him in first grade. That way, the boy would not lose a full year compared to his peers. He could spend a few months in first grade and move on to second grade for the 2025–2026 academic year. Crucially, all of Gerard’s speech therapy sessions, which had shown significant progress before the abduction, could also be resumed.

 

According to sources close to this publication, the family plans to contact both Spanish and Filipino authorities in the coming days to put an end to this situation before further harm is done to the children. If a mother can neglect her child’s education to the point of making him lose a year and disrupt his normal development, what might she do next?

 

To the family, this neglect—and the fact that Laia and Gerard spend many hours unsupervised (Regina often leaves them sitting on the couch staring at a phone, as she did in Spain)—proves that she is not thinking about her children’s well-being. Moreover, her financial demands in August to avoid carrying out the abduction clearly reveal her intentions: to her, the children are a bargaining chip. What kind of mother uses her children to make money?