Mother holds 3 kids hostage

CEBU, Philippines -  She denied the charges, but this did not prevent police from arresting a 39-year-old woman who was accused by her mother of taking three of her kids hostage inside their house in Villa Del Rio Subdivision, Barangay Pit-os, Cebu City Thursday night.

The suspect, as claimed by her mother and 4-year-old daughter, was holding a bolo while keeping them inside the house and refusing to allow her mother and the police to enter.

The kids are aged four, three, and two. They were not hurt during the incident that had members of the Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) responding to the area.

Insp. Roy Manguilimutan, deputy chief of Talamban Police Station, narrated that the suspect’s mother called up the police around 7:45 pm and said that her daughter locked her grandchildren at the second floor of the house.

The mother said she tried to enter the house but the suspect, who was at the ground floor, locked her out.

“Isog daw ang suspek sa sulod unya kita siya na gadala og bolo,” Manguilimutan said. (She said the suspect was mad and was holding a bolo.)

Policemen responded around 8 pm and tried to negotiate with the suspect. The negotiation lasted about thirty minutes.

While the negotiation was ongoing, the responding SWAT team went to the back of the house and managed to subdue the suspect. Luckily, she had already placed the bolo at a table.

Police will file a case either for child abuse or illegal detention against the suspect, Manguilimutan said, with the children’s grandmother as the complainant.

The suspect, the police learned, has a history of being a drug addict and has been at odds with her mother.

The grandmother claimed that her daughter has been having financial problems because the father of the kids, a foreigner, had stopped sending money. The suspect has two other children from a previous Filipino boyfriend.

But the suspect, in an interview, denied taking the kids as hostages.

She said she just sent her children to sleep that time, although the four-year-old child said the suspect indeed was bringing the bolo with her. The suspect further said that it is actually her mother who hurts her children.

Because she used to be hooked on illegal drugs, the suspect is believed to be mentally disturbed but police said she was straightforward with her answers.

The suspect is detained while the kids are now in the grandmother’s custody. —/JPM (FREEMAN)