Las Piñas couple ‘committed suicide’

MANILA, Philippines - The Las Piñas police has declared that the deaths of a couple at a mall parking lot in Las Piñas last month had been suicide, an official said yesterday.

The case of Jose Maria and Juliet Escano is considered closed and no foul play was involved, according to Inspector Eleazar Camiling, chief of the city police’s station investigation and detective management section.

He said in a radio interview that the couple’s relatives have accepted the police’s findings on the cause of death, “shock secondary to the ingestion of toxic substance,” and are no longer interested in pursuing a case.

The couple’s stomach contents and items taken from their vehicle tested positive for oxalic acid, a bleaching agent.

“The family wants to move on,” Camiling said.

He clarified that the police will not dig into the circumstances that led to the suicide in order to respect the family’s privacy.

Dying together

According to police reports, the couple told their co-workers they wished to die together because their three children were grown up.

The colleagues of Juliet, 50, a bank manager, said she told them that when she was a child, she wanted to die and live again just to know who would mourn her death.

Juliet “was deeply religious, kind and often brought us food,” a bank employee was quoted in police reports.

Jose Maria, 51, a pharmaceutical firm manager, reportedly told a female consultant a week before the incident that he and his wife were prepared to die because their children “are already established and have good lives.”

Investigators were able to trace the couple’s activities several hours before they were found dying at the mall on Daang Hari on July 9.

The victims bought food from a fastfood outlet along Macapagal Avenue and a convenience store in Alabang, Muntinlupa.

A source said the couple had been seen in a nearby church before they went to the mall’s parking lot. 

Surveillance footage showed that the victims parked their car in the mall parking lot at around 2:40 p.m. and the vehicle was idle for around five hours until a security guard found Jose Maria sprawled in the back of the vehicle and Juliet unconscious in the driver’s seat.

They were taken to separate hospitals. Juliet was declared dead on arrival while Jose Maria died eight hours later.

According to the autopsy report, Jose Maria’s left wrist and left breast each bore an incision, but his upper garment was not damaged.

Group wants oxalic acid regulated

Meanwhile, the group EcoWaste Coalition urged the government yesterday to convene the Inter-Agency Committee on Environment and Health to craft a policy regulating oxalic acid.

“The government must act fast to prevent more cases of oxalic acid poisoning that had so far claimed the lives of four people this year,” Thony Dizon, EcoWaste’s Project Protect coordinator, said.

The group wants a ban on the unregulated repacking of oxalic acid and its unchecked use for non-industrial applications.

Police toxicology experts said oxalic acid was used to kill milk tea shop owner William Abrigo and customer Suzaine Dagohoy on April 9.

The group urged municipal and city councils to enact ordinances that will prohibit and penalize the unauthorized distribution and sale of repacked oxalic acid, in line with the Local Government Code’s general welfare clause, which empowers local government units to adopt measures that will, among other things, “promote health and safety.”

– With Rhodina Villanueva