A 2-year-old girl was found dead with signs of a severe physical beating in her home in Minglanilla town, south Cebu.
Police are set to file murder charges against her stepfather, who was seen striking the child.
The child’s mother will be charged with parricide after she tried to hide the crime of her live-in partner.
When police arrived at 11:45 a.m. , Ritsanlyn Donayre was lying lifeless on a wooden bed in her home in sitio Panaghiusa, barangay Tunghaan.
The police were tipped off by a concerned citizen who called the police station.
P03 Hazel Tuazon of the women’s desk of the Minglanilla Police Station said the girl’s face and body were full of hematomas or bruises of clotted blood while her lips were bleeding.
When police confronted the child’s mother, Aileen Donayre, 25, and her live-in partner Nicodemo Deloy, 30, the mother said the girl died of pneumonia.
When she was asked about the physical injuries, the mother just cried.
Ritsanlyn was Aileen’s daughter with her first live-in partner who is now in Negros. She and her current partner, Deloy, a construction worker, have a 3-month-old baby staying with Deloy’s sibling.
At the police station, the couple admitted that the girl was beaten.
Deloy said he did it because the girl did not behave when he called her attention.
Aileen said she did not stop the beating because she feared that she, too, would be hit by the man.
They both said the girl seemed all right in the evening.
The little girl died at about 4:30 a.m. Monday.
Neighbors told the police that the couple were quarreling on Sunday afternoon.
At the police sation, Tuazon said that she suspected the couple were high on drugs based on their behaviour.
An 11-year-old neighbor told the police that she saw Deloy slam Ritsanlyn’s head against the wall and then punch her stomach on Sunday afternoon.
The young witness went home and told her mother about it but they did not report the domestic violence to the police.
Some neighbors said they often heard the little girl crying because of Deloy’s treatment.
Police have sought an autopsy of the girl to verify her physical injuries .