Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio, with husband Mans Carpio, shortly after giving birth to baby boy “Stonefish.” Photo courtesy of Mans Carpio
DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 2 March) – Presidential daughter and Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio delivered a healthy baby boy at 12:56 noon on Thursday through cesarean section.
In a statement, City Information Office (CIO) head Jefry Tupas announced that the baby, named “Stonefish,” weighs 2.42 kilos or 5.3 pounds.
“Thank you, Lord, for the gift of life,” the mayor’s husband, lawyer Manases Carpio, was quoted as saying.
According to Mr. Carpio, his wife is “stable” and “generally fine.”
Stonefish is the couple’s third child after adopted daughter “Sharky” and son Mateo Lucas “Stingray” Carpio.
Her pregnancy was announced August 19 last year when she was seven weeks pregnant to triplets, which was her reason why she could not be present during the Kadayawan 2016 festivities “upon advice by her doctor to avoid going to crowded places to prevent acquiring infections.”
“We are expecting triplets and they are doing well on their seventh week. The human body is made to carry just one baby and I am experiencing threefold all the pregnancy symptoms that a woman goes through,” she said in a statement at that time.
The 38-year-old mayor added that this being her second pregnancy, she was experiencing the symptoms and the complications of a multifetal pregnancy but vowed to continue working as mayor until advised by her doctor to take a rest.
But, on September 9, 2016, or just a week after the deadly Roxas Night Market blast that killed 14 lives and injured 70 others, the mayor herself announced she lost her two fetuses during the change of command at the Task Force Davao at the Sta. Ana Wharf.
“All in God’s plan,” a composed mayor said. “I feel sad but everything happens for a reason.”
The demise of her fetuses prompted the mayor to relieve the Task Force Davao commander at that time, Col. Henry Robinson, and replaced by Col. Erwin Bernard Neri.
“May isa pa ako ’wag mo patayin (I still have one in my womb, please don’t kill it).
Give me peace. Give this city peace… Bawal kang huminga at bawal kang matulog (You cannot breathe and you cannot sleep),” she told Col. Neri in jest.
The mayor said she took seriously the incident as she had not experienced bombing or any terroristic attacks when she was mayor from 2010 to 2013 unlike her father, President Rodrigo R. Duterte, who encountered bombings in his 22-year stint as mayor of Davao City.
“There was zero bombing incident during my time, that’s why it’s difficult on my part when I came back as mayor there was a bomb that exploded. I never experienced last Friday’s blast when I was mayor before,” she said back then.
(Antonio L. Colina IV / MindaNews)
