Father Walks Home from Pasig to Makati With Dead Son in a Box

UPDATE: Here's How You Can Help The Couple Who Walked Home With Their Dead Newborn in a Box

A man whose baby died in the hospital was forced to walk home with his son’s corpse because he couldn’t get a ride home. 

According to a story on The Daily Tribune website, Rodel Canas, 23 years old, took his wife to the Rizal Medical Center in Pasig City where she gave birth prematurely last March 11. The baby was diagnosed with congenital heart disease and survived for about a month before succumbing to pneumonia resulting from severe sepsis just over a month later.

Canas, who is a construction worker, was reportedly billed P245,000 by the hospital to cover the delivery and confinement. He sought the help of Thelma P. Ramirez, the barangay chairman of East Rembo, who gave him a certificate of indigency to help with the hospital bill.

Staff members then reportedly gave Canas his son’s body in a box wrapped with packaging tape. The father was then forced to walk all the way home to Makati because there was no available means of transportation.

With the help of Ramirez, Canas arranged for the child’s burial in a vacant lot at the compound he was renting.

Public transportation has been suspended in Metro Manila since the imposition of the Luzon-wide enhanced community quarantine in mid-March.