It was the kind of homecoming every Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW) dreams of avoiding. The mother of three children brutally attacked in Hacienda Badiang, Brgy. E. Lopez, arrived in Negros Occidental on Sunday evening, not to the joyous embrace of her family, but to the sterile, grief-heavy halls of the Corazon Locsin Montelibano Memorial Regional Hospital.
The Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) worked swiftly to assist the mother in her emergency return to the Philippines from Saudi so she could reach her family in their darkest hour.
Still exhausted from her journey and the weight of a broken heart, she went straight from the airport to the bedsides of her surviving children—a 14-year-old girl and a 3-year-old boy—who are currently recuperating from a nightmare that claimed the life of their 9-year-old sister.
The tragedy unfolded on Saturday, February 7 when the children’s father, who works as a farm overseer in Bacolod, returned home to find a scene of incomprehensible horror. Inside their room, he discovered his three children with their heads appearing to have been bashed with stones.
The 9-year-old girl did not survive the violence. She was found lying on top of her older sister.
The Hunt for Justice
The local government and police have intensified their hunt for the unidentified culprit. A total of P75,000 reward money has been offered for the information leading to an arrest.
Rep. Javier Miguel Benitez, 3rd district congressman, condemned the “barbaric” act.
PBrig. Gen. Arnold Thomas Ibay, Director of the Negros Island Region Police, has ordered an “exhaustive and impartial” investigation.
We assure the family that the police will exert all efforts to uncover the truth and hold those responsible accountable, Ibay added.
