A 28-year-old mother and her three sons — aged one, three, and six — died in a fire that broke out in Barangay San Vicente, Sta. Maria, Bulacan on the morning of Thursday, May 15. According to a neighbor of the victims, she saw the mother step out of the house before the incident happened.

“There were two people shouting, ‘Fire! Fire!’ When I turned around, there was already smoke. Everyone rushed to help break the gate of the house. We worked together to get water. I grabbed a blanket for the child. But we couldn’t find the child because it was too dark inside,” the neighbor recounted.

The father was reportedly not at home at the time, as he was working in Batangas. The house door was also locked, prompting the neighbors to break the lock to get inside. One of the responders said the first thing they saw was the lifeless body of the one-year-old boy lying on the bed. They later found his two brothers in the bathroom.

“I was the one who carried the second child. I held him inside. He was still crying because I could still hear his heartbeat. But I couldn’t do anything,” one responder said emotionally. The mother and two remaining children were brought to the hospital, but all were later declared dead.

In the initial investigation by the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP), matches and two bottles of paint thinner were found inside the house.

“In our initial investigation, our findings show that the child was the one burned first. The bed just caught fire afterward. There’s a strong probability that there was an open flame involved. We saw that the burning of the house seemed secondary. The people were clearly the primary targets,” said Alfredo Hernandez, Chief Fire Investigator of the Santa Maria BFP.

According to Barangay Captain Potensyano Lorenzo of San Vicente, the mother went to their office in the early morning before the fire to file a police blotter regarding her marital problems.

“She filed a blotter that night, and we were supposed to summon them both for a dialogue. But it didn’t happen, because the next day, we were met with this tragedy,” Lorenzo said, referring to the couple’s personal issues.

ABS-CBN News attempted to get a statement from the father, but he requested not to give any comments at the moment.

Meanwhile, a 17-year-old girl with a disability (PWD) also perished in a separate fire that occurred at around 7:30 PM on the same day in Barangay Iba Oeste, Calumpit.

According to the report, the victim was unable to escape due to her physical condition when the fire engulfed their house. She was overcome by the smoke and flames. The fire was extinguished at around 8:00 PM by firefighters who are still investigating the cause of the blaze. The incident came to light when someone shouted that there was a fire, prompting neighbors to rush out and help put out the flames before firefighters arrived.

Before passing away, one of the two older children managed to tell rescuers that their mother had poured paint thinner on them and then set them on fire.

This information was confirmed by Police Lieutenant Colonel Voltaire Rivera, Chief of the Sta. Maria Police Station in Bulacan, Philippines. He stated that the child recounted the incident to the individuals who brought him to the hospital before he died.

The mother, identified as Joyce, allegedly doused her three sons — aged 1, 3, and 6 — with paint thinner and set them on fire before also setting herself on fire. The youngest child died at the scene, while the other two were brought to the hospital but did not survive. The mother died on May 15 at the East Avenue Medical Center.

According to the police, the motive may have been related to marital issues between Joyce and her husband, a police sergeant stationed in Batangas. Prior to the incident, Joyce had gone to the barangay office to report problems in their marriage.