Woman gives birth at Manila North Cemetery

Photo taken by INQUIRER.net’s Noy Morcoso III

MANILA, Philippines—While hundreds of thousands went to the Manila North Cemetery on All Saints’ Day to remember their dead, a 24-year-old woman living in shanty near the tomb of former president Manuel Roxas gave birth to a baby girl, the Philippine Red Cross said Friday.

A Red Cross team attended to Jennilyn Ventura when her family called for help around 8 p.m. Thursday, Red Cross service representative Don Erickson Orje told the Inquirer.

Ventura’s water bag broke while she was still in her shanty. In an ambulance on the way to the command post to get a hospital recommendation, the baby’s head emerged, Orje said, adding that a  doctor from  the Manila Health Department then proceeded with the delivery.

Ventura and her baby  were later taken to Ospital ng Tondo by a PRC ambulance.