Pregnant fiscal stabbed dead in Quezon City

MANILA, Philippines — A pregnant prosecutor assigned to the Office of the Ombudsman was stabbed to death in Quezon City yesterday morning.

Madona Joy Ednaco-Tanyag, 33, was repeatedly stabbed in her white Honda City parked along Visayas Avenue by a still unidentified assailant in Barangay Vasra at around 11:20 a.m.

She was last seen buying a drink at a nearby milk tea shop prior to the attack, investigators said.

Barangay officials rushed Tanyag, who was found lying on the pavement next to her car, to the East Avenue Medical Center, where she died less than an hour later.

Probers said they found bloodstains on the driver’s seat of Tanyag’s car, indicating she was stabbed while she was still inside the vehicle.

Probers are initially eyeing a “robbery gone wrong” as a motive, Quezon City Police District director Chief Superintendent Joselito Esquivel said.

The victim’s cell phone is missing, police said.

Esquivel said Tanyag’s husband confirmed she was five months pregnant.

Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales has asked the police to “thoroughly investigate the case” and ensure the perpetrators are immediately caught.

The ombudsman has also extended its condolences to Tanyag’s family.

Tanyag is the second prosecutor killed this year, following the ambush on Chief Inquest Prosecutor Rogelio Velasco last month.

Velasco was gunned down by “professional hitmen” who tailed him from the Quezon City Hall compound as he was driving along Holy Spirit Drive with his children.

Assistant City Prosecutor Noel Mingoa was gunned down while he was walking towards his parked car in front of a restaurant along Commonwealth Avenue in Barangay Old Balara in January 2017.