BAUANG, La Union – At least 40 fetuses ranging from one-month to six-months-old placed inside sealed glass jars and bottles were dug up in a mass grave in the house of a deceased quack doctor in Barangay Quinavite here yesterday.
The house occupant, Nomer Gorospe, stumbled upon three of the fetuses early Thursday when he tore down a suspected concrete mini grave.
Gorospe reported his find to police and barangay officials who went to the site and unearthed more fetuses yesterday.
Gorospe told The STAR that the house used to be owned by his wife’s grandfather, Alfredo Garcia, a known quack doctor who died of an unknown illness on May 23, 1999.
Gorospe recounted that last Wednesday night, he saw a man’s shadow which vanished on the site where he later found the mini grave.
“I searched all over the place but there were no people around so I went back to sleep. And when the sun rose, I saw the covered small concrete grave, which I decided to break due to my suspicions. There I saw the fetuses with heads and body parts placed inside bottles with formalin,” he said.
Romeo Paredes, a barangay official who supervised the diggings, confirmed to The STAR that Garcia was a known quack doctor who he said had cured him of an illness.
“There were a lot of people asking for his house when he was still alive. Mostly were from other places. He treated patients secretly but we don’t know that he was conducting abortion,” Paredes said.
Residents said they observed that some of Garcia’s patients were women believed to be working in nightclubs.
Superintendent Manuel Castro, the town’s police chief, ordered his men to bury the fetuses in the municipal cemetery after local priests have blessed them.
Bauang Mayor Bobby de Guzman said the abortions were done secretly that even Garcia’s neighbors were unaware of them.
“The person responsible for this illegal activity is already dead so we cannot charge him,” he said.