Rejected man takes ex-partner, 2 kids hostage
It was like watching an eight-hour-long telenovela although no one knew how it would end.
Fortunately for one of the “lead players,” Revelyn Degado, the police managed to convince the man who had taken her hostage, jeepney driver Jerry de Leon, to release her unharmed and to also give himself up peacefully.
According to authorities, Degado and De Leon lived together for seven years until they broke up. Only last January, she moved in with another man, along with her two young daughters with De Leon.
At 7 a.m. Thursday, he showed up at her house in Phase 1, Package 1, Bagong Silang, Caloocan City, in an effort to win her back.
Witnesses said they started arguing and then their daughters aged five and seven years old started crying.
At one point, a neighbor said she heard a loud thump and then the couple’s children started
crying.
“Have pity on us, Mama, Papa,” the two were heard telling their parents, according to Brenda
Bastasa.
Two hours later, the police arrived at the scene after they were informed about the hostage-taking. At this point, De Leon let his daughters leave the house but not his former live-in partner.
Superintendent Carlito Dimalanta, the head negotiator, then started talking to De Leon who was brandishing a knife.
Ryan, De Leon’s friend who arrived on the scene in attempt to get him to give himself up, said that several times, De León pointed the knife to his stomach or chest as he threatened to kill himself.
“But I would shout at him and he would stop,” Ryan told reporters.
After hours of negotiating with the police, De Leon finally agreed to give himself up peacefully at 3 p.m.
He came out of the house with a T-shirt wrapped around his head and was brought to a nearby hospital for a checkup in a police car.
Degado, meanwhile, was taken to a police station.
The Philippine Daily Inquirer later learnt that Degado had decided not to press charges against her former live-in partner.
