Mom stabs dad, daughter, self

The love story of two former patients of the Philippine Center for Mental Health turned tragic yesterday when the wife stabbed her husband and injured their 11-year-old daughter in Pasig City.

The police said the wife, Shirley San Ruiz, 52, later tried to end her own life by slashing her wrists. Her husband Alexander, 42, and daughter Ma. Christina, II, suffered multiple stab wounds in the body.

The three were rushed by their neighbors to Sto. Niño de San Antonio General Hospital where they are now undergoing treatment.

Before the stabbing, the couple was heard by their neighbors arguing inside their house on Sydney street, Greenpark Subdivision in Barangay Manggahan at around 5:30 a.m. yesterday, the police said.

According to Pasig City police investigator-on-case PO1 Allan Panis, Shirley apparently took a kitchen knife at the height of the fight and stabbed her husband repeatedly.

And after attacking her husband, the woman could have gotten irked with her daughter’s crying, so she stabbed her, too, Panis said.

The couple’s neighbors, however, sensed what was happening and rushed inside the house to pacify Shirley. They found the San Ruiz family all bloodied.

"It was said that the couple used be patients at the mental hospital in the 1980’s. It is where they met and apparently fell in love with each other, Panis said.

The police said that when the couple were rehabilitated, they were discharged from the hospital.

Meanwhile, the body of a 47-year-old electrician was found hanging by his wife in their house, hours after they had a heated argument over his alleged habitual drinking in Grace Park, Caloocan City yesterday.

PO2 Albert Eustaquio and PO1 Edgar Manapat, officers-on-case, identified the apparent suicide as Ponciano Lucena, a resident of 101, 8th Street, 5th, Avenue, Grace Park, Caloocan.

Police said the victim’s body was found at around 6:30 in the morning by the victim’s wife, Lolita.

Lolita said she last saw her husband alive the night before, while they were having an argument. She said she berated Ponciano for coming home drunk again. Probers gathered that in the heat of their altercation, Lolita left her husband and went out of the house in the middle of the night .

Probers said they found a suicide note beside the victim’s body. – Sheila Crisostomo and Jerry Botial