Photo from Basak Police Station
MANDAUE CITY, Cebu—It was 6 a.m. on Thursday, August 22, when passersby of the busy national highway in Barangay Basak were greeted by the sight of an abandoned newborn baby.
The baby boy still had his umbilical cord when he was discovered inside a shopping bag that was left at the sidewalk of Sitio Riles, around 100 meters away from the Mandaue City Police Station 3 in Barangay Basak.
Patrolman Elmer Gonzales of Basak Police Station said a concerned citizen walked into their station around 6:10 a.m. to inform them that a dead baby was found in Sitio Riles.
“Ingon among kauban nga registered nurse, naa na ni sa mga eight or nine months old [from conception],” Gonzales told CDN Digital.
(Our colleague, who is a registered nurse, said that the baby is around eight or nine months old from conception.)
Although the area where the baby was found is along the highway, Gonzales said nobody saw the person who dumped the baby in the area.
“We will look into the neighboring establishments to check on their CCTVs if they captured a person carrying the same shopping bag where the baby was placed,” Gonzales said in the Visayan language.
The responding police brought the child to the Archdiocesan Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima, also located in Barangay Basak, where it was blessed before it was buried at the public cemetery in Barangay Pagsabungan. / celr