Pregnant Filipina claims killing live-in partner in self-defence

A pregnant Filipino woman, allegedly a victim of domestic abuse, is now in prison after killing her live-in partner in downtown Manila on Tuesday in what she claimed as unintentional action in self-defence.

“I did not intend to kill him,” Nel Jessa Rivera, 20, told police investigators in Quiapo. “I just wanted to scare him, so that he would stop beating me up. I had suffered so much. I had always eaten his beatings for breakfast, lunch and supper.”

The mother of two boys, who is five months pregnant, said she stabbed Leopoldo Tioson, 32, to the thigh and groin when he started beating her inside their rented home at 385-14 Internal Street just before lunchtime on April 2.

Rivera said Tioson, a jeepney driver, went berserk when he couldn’t find the 10-peso coin (90 fils) he had placed on the kitchen table because Rivera had allegedly spent it for food.

She added that Tioson called her a thief and started beating her with a piece of wood. Rivera said she had thought of defending herself because she was afraid of harm to her unborn child.

Police officer Anthony Boncan said Tioson’s family has filed a homicide case against Rivera, who is now languishing at the detention cell of Manila Police District’s Homicide Section.

Pinoy illegalls rounded up in Saudi Arabia

The non-government group MigranteMiddle East has appealed to the Philippine government to assist Filipinos rounded up in Saudi Arabia for staying illegally in the kingdom.

John Leonard Monterona, the group’s Dubai-based regional director, said in a statement sent to Manila that about 40 Filipinos, most of them women, have been arrested by Saudi authorities since last week.

He also said, citing information from Philippine officials in Jeddah, there were about 12,000 Filipinos who do not have the papers necessary to continue staying in the kingdom.

The tabloid ‘Abante Tonite’ on Thursday quoted Monterona as saying that the number of Filipinos rounded up across Saudi Arabia was about 7,000 as at the last quarter of 2012. The figure could now have reached between 38,000 and 42,000.

There are 1.2 million Filipinos in Saudi Arabia, home to the largest number of overseas Filipinos workers.

Raul Hernandez, spokesman of the Department of Foreign Affairs, said in Manila that the Philippine embassy in Riyadh and the consulate in Jeddah are closely monitoring Saudi Arabia’s implementation of its laws against foreigners staying illegally in the kingdom.

 

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