Woman prays to ‘my angel’ at San Juan cemetery

MANILA, Philippines—Cecille Boticario-Badjun lost her one-day-old son six years ago but she still talks to him in prayer.

“Please guide me and be a good boy up there,” she would usually tell her child, who died after being born prematurely. She never really got to see the baby in person.

Every All Souls’ Day, she visits her son’s grave at the San Juan cemetery and celebrates his birthday every June 22.

“On his birthdays, I usually cook pancit and invite neighbors,” Badjun said. It’s as if Niño is still alive, she added and smiled.

When Badjun was pregnant, she always prayed to the Sto. Niño at the Santuario De Santo Cristo in San Juan. She named him after the child Jesus.

“He is my angel and he’s up there guiding me,” she added.

The baby spent only 6 months and two weeks in her womb. She had to deliver him through Cesarean section due to a placenta problem.

Badjun was not able to see her son. “I only had a glimpse of him while the doctors were taking him to the incubator.”

She was not able to attend his burial because she was still confined in the hospital.

Her only memory of him is a photo displayed in her house and Facebook page.  Perlita Boticario, her sister-in-law, took a picture of the baby.

Niño was Badjun’s fourth child by her ex-partner. She is now married to another man but she is afraid of having another baby.

Losing a child is hard, she said.

“I learned to accept it but I’m afraid to lose another baby,” she said. “I don’t want to go through that pain again.”

Buried next to Niño’s grave are babies who lived one day or less.