Couple nabbed for dumping newly born baby

Map of Cebu. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

CEBU CITY — A woman and her live-in partner were arrested by police officers on Monday evening, June 12, after they allegedly dumped a newborn girl in Barangay San Vicente, Liloan town, north Cebu.

In its initial report, the Liloan police said a scavenger found the infant with an uncut umbilical cord and placenta, wrapped in skirt clothes, and placed inside a sack.

The scavenger brought the infant to the San Vicente Barangay Hall and barangay tanods turned it over to the municipal health office for  treatment.

The infant survived.

The girl’s 36-year-old mother Pia (not her real name) said it was her 38-year-old live-in partner Nero who threw the baby without her consent and knowledge.

In an interview on radio station dyLA, the mother said she was very weak when she delivered the baby on her own inside their house on Sunday noon.

She said she believed the baby had died because she did not hear it cry.

She said she wrapped the baby with the uncut umbilical cord and placenta with her duster dress.

While she was sleeping, Pia said she did not know that Nero had put the baby inside the sack and threw it several meters away from their house.

When she asked Nero where he came from, the male suspect replied “naghipos sa imong pinamigaan. (I kept the evidence of your lust).”

Pia and Nero have five children, but three of them were raised by the former’s parents in Mindanao.

The mother admitted that Nero is not the father of the newly-born baby, but she could no longer identify the father because she had met several men.

Pia, a scavenger, said she was willing to raise the baby together with her other children.

“I do not want to be imprisoned because I have children to raise,” she said.

She said Nero, a scrap buyer, should be charged for what he did to the baby.

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