THE live-in partners in Liloan town, northern Cebu were arrested for allegedly throwing their newborn girl in the garbage.
The suspects were identified as Vilma Jemes Sayre, 36, and her live-in partner Raul Saat Taritas, both residents of Sitio Cogon, Barangay San Vicente of the said municipality.
Sayre, a native of Dipolog, Zamboanga Del Norte, gave birth on Sunday, June 11, 2023.
In an interview with SunStar Cebu, Sayre said she gave birth inside their house and no one helped her as her husband was out buying scraps for a living.
She said the baby did not cry.
According to her that when Taritas arrived, she asked him to bring them to the health center but her husband refused.
Taritas, however, thought the infant was already dead because she did not cry, so he put her inside a sack.
She claimed that her spouse even told her that he was not the child's father.
“Nasuko man to siya iya ko giingnan nga gikan daw sa akong binigaan ang bata (He became enraged and told me that the child was from my lover),” Sayre said on Tuesday, June 13.
The couple have been living together for 19 years.
They have five children.
Taritas buys scraps for a living, while Sayre is a massage therapist.
Sayre did not deny that she was forced to have sex with her customers in exchange for money due to poverty.
She said her husband would not give her money for their food.
“Oo lain-lain sad dili naman ko kabalo kinsa’y amahan. Oo, maabot mga napulo (Yes, there are many of them, I don’t know who the father is. It will reach about ten),” according to Sayre on Tuesday, June 13.
Taritas, on his part, denied that he was the one who put the child in the sack, even insisting that it was the mother who threw the child.
He said he was certain the child was not his due to the fact that he is unable to conceive after having a vasectomy.
Currently, the municipal health center takes care of the healthy baby girl who was found by a garbage collector from the garbage dump in Cogon San Vicente.
The couple admitted owning the sack where the baby was placed.
They will be facing a frustrated murder case. (ANV, TPT)