MikeLigalig.com

By Bill Ventura

The husband of the woman, who allegedly abandoned her baby at a trash bin inside a Gulf Air plane, was startled with the reports and that he was taken aback by the sudden arrival to Apayao of his wife from Qatar, despite having a three-year contract as domestic helper there.

This was the confirmation of P/Insp. Jeffrey Vicente, Flora town deputy police chief, as Maria Mercedes (not her real name) of Anninipan village in Flora town in Apayao Province left for Qatar only in June 2009, her second time to work abroad as overseas contract worker, and was due to be back in 2012.

The woman’s native home -- the upland and mountainous Apayao, which was then a sub-province of Kalinga and formerly within the Cagayan Valley region, was under the jurisdiction of the Cordillera region but it was a neighboring province of Cagayan and Isabela provinces in Cagayan Valley (Region 2).

The woman, who has two children with her husband, has been ‘severely humiliated’ and that she has been remorseful of what she had done, officials in the province said.

The woman’s husband has declined to give any comment to the police or to the media amid the furor involving his wife’s abandonment of her baby. The husband told the police that they would wait for the result of the formal investigation by authorities regarding the incident.

“So far, the family has been asking that the issue must not be publicized to avoid further humiliation,“ Vicente told this reporter over the phone.

Vicente said the husband reported to the police that he agreed to allow his wife to join the NBI agents for questioning on the abandoned Gulf Air baby.

Even the Apayao provincial police office has been surprised by the sudden ‘invitation’ by the NBI to the mother of the abandoned baby.

Police Superintendent Nestor Bergonia, Apayao provincial police director, told this reporter that they were surprised by the sudden ‘invitation’ to the Gulf Air baby’s mother without their knowledge.

“We were not informed. No coordination at all with the Apayao police,” he added.

However, the Apayao police, through the Flora municipal police station and the town government officials, have assured the family of the said woman of security and protection from humiliation due to the reported abandonment of her baby, he said. (PNA)

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