Woman jailed for ‘throwing’ her baby away

A WOMAN was arrested on suspicion she threw her dead baby girl inside a plastic bag in a vacant lot in Barangay Catarman, Liloan, Cebu last Tuesday night.

Yolanda (real name withheld as requested by the police) was caught by a barangay councilor and a staffer of the Liloan Muncipal Social Welfare and Development Office last Thursday afternoon, after neighbors reported that her large belly mysteriously became small.

Change in appearance

“They said she was pregnant, but they never saw the child,” said SPO3 Gay Servilla, the Women and Children’s Protection Desk in-charge.

In an interview in her detention cell, Yolanda, 39, denied throwing her child. She said she is willing to undergo a test to prove she is not the dead child’s mother.

Yolanda said she was eight months and two weeks pregnant when she had a miscarriage last May 16.

New partner

“Wa gyo’y bata nigawas (The baby didn’t come out),” she said.

“Wala koy giinom nga tambal aron makuha ang bata (I did not drink anything to abort my child),” she added.

She said she has a new boyfriend, after separating with her live-in partner of two years. She broke up with her husband three years ago.

Last Tuesday night, lot caretaker Rene Andrade saw a dog dragging a plastic bag with something inside.

He shooed the dog and checked the contents of the plastic bag. He found the body of the baby girl, who was nine to 10 months old.