[wpgmappity id=”215″]
BACOLOD CITY, Philippines—A 24-year-old mother has confessed to killing her two children, both female toddlers, last Monday and hiding their bodies in a sugarcane field in Hinigaran town, Negros Occidental, police said.
The suspect identified as Mira Lacson, 24, was arrested by the police the next day and was detained at the Hinigaran police station.
Lacson, who admitted the crime on Wednesday, told police investigators that she drowned her two children, ages 1 and 3, in a canal in Barangay Calapiat about 1 p.m. of May 21 then hid the bodies in a nearby sugarcane field.
Seven hours later, several barangay tanod (village watchmen), led by Kagawad Edwin Estorninos, discovered the bodies of the victims after a thorough search of the field.
But Police Officer 3 Ma. Victorina Oychocde, local police Women’s and Children Complaint Desk chief, said the two children died of suffocation, based on the result of an autopsy conducted by Dr. Edgar Acosta of the Hinigaran Municipal Health office.
The autopsy results bolstered allegations that the children might have been strangled to death, Oychocde said.
She added that two counts of child murder charges would be filed against Lacson.
Prior to the incident, Lacson claimed that she was always berated by her mother for being a “happy-go-lucky” person, and scolded for neglecting her two children, police investigations showed.
The two children reportedly had different fathers.
In an interview with MBC Aksyon Radyo, the father of the suspect, whose identity is not available, said his daughter frequently hung out with idle men in their neighborhood suspected of using prohibited drugs. The father said these slackers might have molested his daughter.
Up to this time, he said he could not believe that his daughter could kill her two children. He added that he could not determine yet if his daughter was suffering from a mental illness.
Authorities are also investigating reports that Lacson might be suffering from post-partum depression.