BAGUIO: I SAW MY BABY'S HEAD ROLL ON THE FLOOR
BAGUIO CITY, MARCH 29, 2008 (STAR) By Artemio Dumlao Friday, March 28, 2008 BAGUIO CITY – After three miscarriages, 22-year-old Amy Diaz, together with her 24-year-old husband, Bernabe, a gasoline attendant, was expecting a “gift” on Easter Sunday – their first-born to be christened Ayesa Bea Mae.But on Sabado de Gloria (Black Saturday) they had to bury her after an incident in the delivery room of the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center Wednesday night left the baby headless.
“I saw my baby’s head roll on the floor,” Amy recounted in the Iluko dialect.
She said her husband rushed her to the hospital before midnight after she began to suffer labor pains.
During her delivery, however, a certain Edward “forcibly pulled the head of my baby,” she claimed, saying she saw it drop to the floor and roll.
According to Amy, doctors had to operate on her to remove her baby’s headless body.
She said it would have easy to accept if her first-born was dead inside her womb prior to the delivery.
“We were told that our child suffered from an abnormality,” she said.
But Amy disputed this, saying that an ultrasound and an ECG prior to the delivery showed that her baby was healthy.
The couple had reported the incident to the police, and the National Bureau of Investigation is conducting its own investigation.
“We will have to wait (for the results of the investigation),” Bernabe said in the dialect.
The STAR repeatedly tried to get a comment from the hospital’s chief obstetrician-gynecologist, Teresita Agbanlog, but she apparently wanted to keep mum about the incident pending the results of the NBI probe.
“They told us it may take a month to finish (the investigation),” Bernabe said.
Meanwhile, Dr. Mary Jo Dulawan, Ifugao provincial health officer, denied that her son, Edward, a medical intern in the hospital, could have been the one tagged by Amy.
“He could not have been involved,” she said, adding that Amy could have mistaken her son doing the procedure.
Dulawan said her son, as an intern in the pediatrics department, is physically present in the delivery room but only to take over the newborn after the obstetrician-gynecologists have done their job.
Abu Sayyaf frees school principal By Roel Pareño Friday, March 28, 2008
ZAMBOANGA CITY – Suspected Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) militants have freed the principal of Notre Dame School in Tawi-Tawi after holding him captive for more than two months, police said yesterday.
Omar Taup, teacher and principal of Notre Dame School in Tabawan, South Ubian, was released last March 17 at the market in Bongao town after his family paid for his “board and lodging.”
“Taup was sickly. He was abandoned at the market site,” Superintendent Wainwright Taup, Tawi-Tawi police director, quoted the principal’s brother as saying.
The police official admitted that the victim’s family shelled out an amount for his “board and lodging” but did not say how much.
However, reports reaching Chief Superintendent Joel Goltiao, Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao police director, said Taup’s family paid P200,000 in exchange for his release.
The kidnappers initially demanded P1-million ransom, but later reduced it to P350,000.
According to Superintendent Taup, the principal’s family started the negotiations on March 15, even as the police were tracking down his whereabouts for a surprise rescue operation.
He said the victim was immediately brought here for a medical checkup after his release in Bongao town.
The Notre Dame School principal was seized by the Abu Sayyaf led by Wahab Opao and a certain Ben or Umar Asmanan, believed to be JI bomber Dulmatin, last Jan. 15 following the botched kidnapping of Fr. Reynaldo Roda, who was killed when he resisted.
Opao and Asmanan were killed in a Marine offensive last Jan. 31. Remains suspected to be that of Dulmatin were dug up on Feb. 18 and are undergoing DNA tests.
Chief News Editor: Sol Jose Vanzi
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