A man whose baby died in the hospital had no choice but to walk home with his son's corpse because he could not get a ride.
According to The Daily Tribune, Rodel Canas, 23, took his wife to the Rizal Medical Center, Pasig City, where she gave birth prematurely last March 11.
The baby was diagnosed with congenital heart disease and survived for about a month, before succumbing to pneumonia resulting from severe sepsis.
Canas, who is a construction worker, was reportedly billed P245,000 by the hospital to cover the delivery and confinement.
He sought the help of Thelma P. Ramirez, the barangay chairman of East Rembo, who gave him a certificate of indigency to help with the hospital bill.
Staff members reportedly gave Canas his son's body in a box wrapped with packaging tape.
The father was then forced to walk all the way home from Pasig to Makati, the box of his dead son in his hands, because there was no available transportation.
With the help of Ramirez, Canas arranged for the child's burial in a vacant lot at the compound where he rents.
Public transportation has been suspended in Metro Manila since the imposition of the Luzon-wide enhanced community quarantine in mid-March.