Losing Your Children
When the State Intrudes
By David Haldane
October 13, 2025
The text message came from nowhere.
“Good evening, David,” it said. “I’ve been staying in motels since May…work has been hard to come by, and I have been struggling in all aspects of life. Is there any chance you [could] help me with $60, and I can pay you back in the coming days?”
It was from Justin Surs, a man I’d met only once. That happened in 2018 when I interviewed him for the radio station then employing me in Joshua Tree, California. Surs’ two-year-old son, it seemed, had developed a brain tumor and was fighting for his life at a hospital 137 kilometers away. So, Justin and his wife had started a Go-Fund-Me campaign to raise enough money to move closer.
“It’s hard,” he told me in our on-air talk. “I don’t want to waste any more time not spending it with him. Honestly, it’s destroying me.”
The next time I heard from Surs was by Facebook Messenger six years later, and then again earlier this year. The good news: his son, Issaiah, had recovered from brain surgery. The bad: Justin and the boy’s mother had been arrested on suspicion of child endangerment and their five children taken away.
My reaction: utter astonishment and disbelief!
To be fair, I have no direct knowledge regarding the truth or falsity of those charges. I can say with certainty, however, that Surs always struck me as a caring and loving dad. “It’s all unfounded and untrue,” he told me in a subsequent telephone call. “The whole story is heinous and crazy.”
His theory: that someone with a personal vendetta called the authorities, who then conducted a cursory and biased investigation. Which would be easy to laugh off, except for something my wife and I once experienced ourselves.
It happened several years ago when our son was still a toddler. One night, shortly after we’d returned from a trip to the Philippines, two police officers gave our door a 3 a.m. pound. A neighbor, they informed us, had called to report that our child was crying.
“He’s jetlagged and can’t sleep,” we explained
“Let’s take a look!” the officers snapped.
They spent the next 20 minutes examining our baby for bruises. And the next day a social worker showed up to thoroughly inspect our house and interview us regarding our income, lifestyle, and methods of disciplining our son. But here’s the thing: had any of them seen something they didn’t like or felt so inclined, they could have taken him away and the burden of proof would be on us.
It’s different in the Philippines where, though strict laws protect children, they are not so easily or unilaterally enforced. Removing a child from its home requires thorough investigation, documentation, and coordination. Which, in practice, means it doesn’t happen very often.
For protecting children, I’m not sure which system is best.
For parents like Justin Surs, however, what passes for swift American justice can truly shatter lives. From a series of foster homes, four of his five children were eventually sent to live with their grandma, who moved from Arizona to California for that purpose. Isaiah, now ten and requiring special care, resides with foster nurses. And Justin, limited to supervised weekly visits as his case wends through the courts, lives with his wife in cheap motels. Unable to find lucrative employment due to the pending charges, they survive by delivering food for a website called DoorDash.
Here are some lines from a poem he sent me describing his situation:
A child’s hug, a voice at night—
“Daddy, stay. We need you near.”
Though darkness scratches at the door,
He stands, defiant, soul and more,
He is no myth, no flawless knight,
But he will battle through the night.
For love, for hope, for each child’s name—
A father’s fight, a sacred flame.
I honestly don’t know how all this will turn out. But I sent him that $60. And told him not to worry about paying me back.
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David Haldane is an award-winning American author and journalist with homes in Southern California and Northern Mindanao. His latest book is Dark Skies: Tales of Turbulence in Paradise. This column appears weekly in The Manila Times.
