MANILA, Philippines — Using a bolo bearing his initials, a 56-year-old man stabbed his wife to death while she was playing Bingo with some friends at Manila’s Port Area Sunday night and then said he was not aware of what he had done because he had been suddenly aroused from sleep and had had a few beers.
Arsenio Bañez was taken into custodial investigation at the Manila Police District headquarters shortly after he lunged at his wife Monica and thrust his machete into her womb, killing her instantly, police said.
Police Officer 3 Marlon San Pedro of the MPD homicide division said the victim was playing Bingo at a neighbor’s house in Area 7, Gawad Kalinga Village in the Baseco Compound when her husband came out of their house around 6 p.m. and attacked his wife in front of her friends and neighbors.
San Pedro said that when Bañez saw his wife fall on the pavement, he walked away casually with the bolo.
He told the Philippine Daily Inquirer in an interview he “unknowingly” stabbed and killed his wife of 36 years.
“I was already sleeping late in the afternoon because I had a few bottles of beer and I was awakened by a loud thud that prompted me to grab my bolo,” he said.
Bañez claimed he was not aware of what happened next and remembered only seeing his wife covered in blood and falling off a chair onto the pavement.
“When I realized that I was holding my bolo, I realized that I had struck her without even knowing it,” he added.
Bañez said he walked away and proceeded to surrender to the nearest police station, but a report from the Baseco Police Community Precinct showed Bañez was apprehended by policemen patrolling the area while he was walking in the compound where the stabbing took place, still clutching the weapon.
Bañez told the Inquirer he regretted killing his wife and that they did not have any fight prior to the stabbing. “I really did not know that I already killed her,” he said.
San Pedro said Bañez would be charged with parricide. With a report from Jacqueline Arias, PDI trainee
RELATED STORIES
Man wanted for killing wife, teen son
San Juan man kills wife; bro helps him dump body