"Mushrooms" send five to hospital

CEBU, Philippines - Five persons were hospitalized Sunday after having partaken of a soup consisting of “malunggay” and what looked like mushrooms picked by a neighbor from an area where residents usually dispose of their trash in sitio Toril in barangay Tingub, Mandaue City.

Marjie Basalo, 23, accepted the “mushrooms” from neighbor Benjie Monte, 25.

She boiled the mushrooms with “malunggay for supper and shared the soup with her live-in partner, her brother, and her two year-old son, and the neighbor who picked the “mushrooms.”

Moments later, her son started to throw up, followed by everybody else. 

Neighbors immediately took them to the Dr. Ignacio Cortes Hospital in barangay Centro in Mandaue City.

A physician, who was shown the soup, said what was cooked wasn’t mushroom but something that resembled it.

Basalo and her family have been discharged from the hospital.

Basalo’s brother and the neighbor who picked the mushrooms remain under observation.   (FREEMAN)