In the quiet, rural landscape of Hermosa, Bataan, a horrific discovery was made on a January morning in 2017. The body of a young woman was found hanging from a tree, her face covered with a towel, her death staged to look like a desperate act of suicide.

But as investigators from the Scene of the Crime Operatives (SOCO) peeled back the layers of the scene, they uncovered a far more sinister and brutal reality. The victim was 20-year-old Angelique Charlotte Bulatao, four months pregnant, and she had not taken her own life. She was the victim of a monstrous crime, and the perpetrators were the very men her own mother had invited into their home.

Angelique’s story is a tragic tapestry of family dysfunction and a mother’s catastrophic choices. Raised by her single mother, Rodora, Angelique was the responsible eldest child who found her life upended when Rodora began a new relationship with a man named Romel Punio.

Against her daughter’s wishes, Rodora allowed Romel, along with his friends and her own brother-in-law, to move into their small family home. The house soon became a hub for late-night drinking sessions, a source of constant tension for the pregnant Angelique.

The situation became unbearable. Angelique confided in her grandmother that the men were harassing her, peeping on her while she bathed and making unwanted advances. She gave her mother a desperate ultimatum: choose between her daughter and the new boyfriend.

When her mother hesitated, Angelique, feeling unsafe in her own home, moved out to live with her grandmother just days before her death. Rodora, eventually realizing her daughter was right, tried to end the relationship with Romel, but he flew into a rage, threatening her with a knife.

The final, fatal series of events was set in motion on the night of January 27, 2017. Rodora was at a drinking session with Romel and his friends when Romel became intensely jealous, suspecting she was flirting with another man.

He made a chilling threat: if she didn’t come home with him immediately, he would take his anger out on her daughter, Angelique. Fearing for her child, Rodora relented and brought the drunken, volatile group back to their house.

There, she says her drink was spiked, and she quickly felt weak and dizzy, passing out in her room. Tragically, this was the night Angelique chose to come home, hoping to reconcile with her mother. Instead, she walked into a trap. She was met by a house full of drunk, predatory men.

What happened next is a blur of horror, pieced together by witness statements and Rodora’s own hazy recollections. A neighbor reported hearing a woman’s terrified screams that night but dismissed it as another drunken argument.

Rodora herself admitted to hearing the commotion but claimed she was too incapacitated to get up and help her own daughter. In that house, while her mother was passed out in the next room, Angelique was brutally assaulted and strangled to death.

The autopsy report revealed the full extent of the depravity. Not only was she beaten and sexually assaulted, but the report confirmed the most horrifying detail: the four-month-old fetus she had been carrying was no longer in her womb, likely dislodged during the violent ordeal or after her body was left hanging for days.

The investigation quickly led to the arrests of Rodora’s boyfriend, Romel Punio, her brother-in-law, Ricky Llantada, and their friend, Melchor Zapanta. The men denied the charges, but the evidence was substantial. In a controversial and painful twist for the family, after a year in custody, a court granted the three suspects bail, allowing them to walk free while the case slowly progresses.

Rodora is left with an ocean of grief and guilt, admitting she made a terrible mistake by allowing those men into her home. The story of Angelique Bulatao is a profound tragedy—a cautionary tale of a mother’s failure to protect her child, a young woman’s horrifying final moments, and a justice system that, in the eyes of a grieving family, has added a deep and lasting insult to an already unbearable injury.