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Friday, January 20, 2006
Police to charge wife who hacked her husband
Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña promised that the City will take care of the medical bills of Taptap Barangay Captain Jesus Bontilao, who was hacked by his wife last Wednesday.
The Association of Barangay Councils (ABC), hampered by guidelines, cannot help the victim financially.
Bontilao’s wife Babylonia, 54, was charged yesterday with frustrated parricide in relation to last Wednesday’s hacking of the Taptap barangay captain.
“It’s up to the family if they want to settle the case. But we have to file the complaint,” said SPO1 Rey Cuyos, the investigator assigned to the case.
Eldest son Rogelio, 33, said he and his siblings will try to talk to their father to forgive Babylonia and reconsider the filing of charges.
Cuyos, however, said that when he spoke with Jesus last Wednesday night, the captain had decided to press charges against his wife.
After 34 years of marriage, Babylonia hacked Jesus with a 17-inch bolo shortly before noon last Wednesday. She was said to be jealous that her husband had left her for another woman.
Jesus was wounded in the nape and treated at the Perpetual Succour Hospital, but was declared out of danger last Wednesday night.
Unfortunately, he can’t expect any official assistance from the barangay officials’ federation.
ABC president and Guadalupe Barangay Captain Eugenio Faelnar said he checked the by-laws for paying for members’ hospitalization and learned that government funds cannot be used to help Bontilao.
“This is a medico-legal case. The hospitalization benefit covers only those with natural ailments,” Faelnar said in Cebuano.
Bontilao’s wife attacked him while he was making plans for the construction of their son’s house. He was hit in the nape, and would have been killed had their son not intervened.
Arrested after the incident, Babylonia was quoted by reporters as saying her only regret was that her husband’s head did not fall off after the attack.
She accused him of carrying on an affair with a fellow barangay official.
In an interview, Osmeña said the City will try to help the barangay captain. “We’ll take care of that. We’re looking into that case,” he said.
Faelnar said that unless there are other sources of financial assistance, Bontilao’s children and relatives would have to pay the hospital bills themselves.
But he also said Bontilao’s injury is not really that serious and that the barangay captain can leave the hospital in a couple of days.
Cuyos confirmed that Bontilao was already out of danger as of Wednesday night, giving the police the chance to ask him about the details of the hacking.
For the past eight months, Babylonia and Jesus have been living in separate houses, after the latter reportedly left their residence in Taptap and moved into his daughter’s house in the neighboring Sitio Tagaytap, Adlaon.
Babylonia and Jesus have been married for 34 years and have seven children. The youngest is now 13 years old. (RHM/JST)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (January 20, 2006 issue)
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