Student primary suspect on infant’s death

TACLOBAN CITY — Police in Northern Samar are investigating a 19-year-old female university student identified as the suspect in the death of a newborn infant whose body was found in a drainage canal Monday near the University of Eastern Philippines campus.

The infant’s body was discovered by a police officer in front of his residence, who immediately alerted the Catarman Municipal Police Station. Responding personnel found the female newborn lying face down and partly submerged in the canal and took the body to the Municipal Rural Health Office for disposition.

Police Col. Sonnie Omengan, provincial director of the Northern Samar Police Provincial Office, said the suspect was identified using CCTV footage recovered from a nearby boarding house.

Investigators reviewed the footage, which showed the suspect leaving a communal comfort room at about 3:15 a.m. on 6 October 2025, carrying a white pail. She was seen returning to her room moments later, and her slippers reportedly bore visible bloodstains.

The investigation also revealed that the suspect’s landlady had received a text message from the student at about 8:45 p.m. the previous night, asking for dysmenorrhea medicine. Another tenant reported hearing unusual noises, like someone in pain or distress, accompanied by splashing sounds coming from the comfort room early Monday morning.

Omengan said the CCTV recordings were “crucial in helping our investigators piece together what transpired,” providing key evidence in reconstructing the timeline of events.

He stressed that any person found responsible for the death or abandonment of a newborn could face serious criminal charges.

If the infant was killed within three days of birth, the act could be prosecuted as infanticide, which is punishable by up to life imprisonment and if the newborn was abandoned alive and died as a result, the suspect could be charged with abandonment of a minor resulting in death, punishable by up to 20 years of imprisonment.