MANILA, Philippines - A jeepney driver stabbed dead his three children before attempting to commit suicide Monday night after his wife refused to reconcile with him.
Before killing his children, Rolando Reformado, 36, sent a text message in Filipino to his sister-in-law, Marjorie Rey, ordering her to tell his wife, Angelie, that he would never leave her in peace, “if only so that she would remember me in her dreams.”
Reformado told Rey that “we are about to leave, I hope she gives the children a proper burial. Never mind me, she can throw my body in the Pasig River. It’s nearly midnight, and it’s too late.”
Rey, alarmed by the message, rushed to Reformado’s house on Dapitan street in Sampaloc but when she got there at about 12:20 a.m. yesterday, she saw the bloody bodies of her nephews Jonel, 14, and Junli, 9; and niece Janel, 5.
She also saw her brother-in-law stab himself.
Rey also read a message for Angelie – which Reformado had written using the children’s blood – on the wall.
“Sorry sa lahat Ma. Mahal na mahal kita sana ay mapatawad mo ako (I’m sorry for everything, Ma. I love you very much. I hope you can forgive me),” the message read.
Rey screamed for help, prompting the neighbors to check Reformado’s house. Of the children, only Junli was alive.
They rushed the boy to Jose Reyes Memorial Medical Center but physicians declared him dead at around 1:38 a.m.
Reformado survived. He remains under guard at the Philippine General Hospital while a parricide case is being prepared against him.
Angelie was emotional upon learning what happened to her children. She said they were killed just hours before she was supposed to get them from her husband, whom she described as a wife-beater and shabu user.
Angelie left their house on Aug. 21 because she could no longer stomach Reformado’s abuse. She stayed in Caloocan with Janel but Reformado took the girl back with him to Manila on Aug. 28.
Angelie said she did not want to leave the children with him but had to because they were studying.
While the children were in his custody, Reformado attempted to reconcile with Angelie but the woman refused.
“I have had enough. He always beats me up,” she said.
Angelie said her husband told her that if she does not talk to him, he would “bring them where I am going.”
Now that their children are dead, Angelie said she could only wish that her husband “had been the one who died.”