Mother leaves behind infant to bus passenger
Already a mother of five, Arlene Ortega was unprepared to take another child under her wing.
But that’s what happened to her when a fellow bus passenger left a newborn infant to her care on the way to Cebu City then disappeared.
At a stopover in Bogo City, north Cebu, the baby’s mother, who was breastfeeding, stood up to go to the toilet.
“She said she was just going to the bathroom,” said 38-year-old Ortega, a resident of Daanbantayan town, north Cebu.
The young mother never returned.
Ortega and her sibling earlier boarded the Cebu City-bound Ceres bus, where Ortega sat beside the young mother who breastfed her baby.
The mother’s identity is not known.
Neither is her reason for abandoning the infant, which still has his umbilical cord attached to his stomach.
When the young mother failed to show up, Ortega said she asked the driver to wait while she got out of the bus to look for her.
Ortega said she was unable to get the young woman’s name and address.
She said the child appeared to be only a week old since his umbilical cord was still intact.
“He had some diapers wrapped with him,” Ortega said.
Ortega said she suspects that the infant was born out of an unwanted pregnancy.
Other bus passengers encouraged her to take the infant into her household but she said she already has five kids to care for, including her youngest at four months old.
“My husband doesn’t have a steady job,” Ortega said.
She called up a radio station for help after arriving in Cebu City at 6 p.m. last Tuesday.
Ortega later went to the Patria de Cebu, the main administration office of the Cebu archdiocese in barangay So. Niño Cebu City to turn over the baby.
But Ortega said no one could take care of the child there, so she went directly to the Sto. Niño barangay hall.
Barangay captain Pancho Ramirez said he had the incident reported to the police and brought the infant to the Cebu City Medical Center.
He plans to turn over the baby to the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).
