Baby drowns as mother sleeps

A seven-month-old baby boy drowned when he fell in the murky water beneath their makeshift house before dawn yesterday in the coastal town of Navotas.

According to the boy’s uncle, Boy San Buenaventura, Louie Jay Dalwatan’s widowed mother fed her four children when she arrived at their home in Tabing Dagat, Barangay Daang-Hari from a day of selling fish.

Vangie Dalwatan and her children went to sleep at around 11 p.m. after she breastfed Louie. However, when Vangie woke up at 3 a.m. to breastfeed her baby, she found he was no longer at her side.

After a few minutes of searching, she found Louie’s body half-buried in the muddy water beneath their house.

"Maybe the mother was very tired after a day of vending fish to earn for her children. She (was asleep and did not know) that the boy had crawled and fell in the murky water, where he drowned," San Buenaventura said.

Barangay Daang-Hari is one of several depressed areas in Navotas where thousands of temporary settlers put up makeshift houses along the shore.

San Buenaventura said residents in these areas throw their waste in the water directly beneath their houses. He challeged local politicians to help uplift the living conditions of the people in the depressed areas. – Pete Laude