Man helped kidnappers take boy

CEBU, Philippines - Mall security cameras revealed that another man was with the two women who allegedly abducted a one-and-a-half year-old boy from his aunt last Monday.

Chief Insp. Bonifacio Garciano, head of the Investigation and Detective Management Branch of Cebu City Police Office, said that Gina Pareja, the aunt of missing baby Jake, positively identified one of the two women captured in the images.

Garciano also learned that the mall activity center does not have any security camera which could have recorded the alleged abduction.

The two women were seen near an escalator walking away from the area.

“Nagbulag ang duha ka babye og lakaw pero na uban ra gihapon sila paggawas na,” Garciano said.

Minutes later, another security camera positioned at the Sanciangko St. exit captured the image of a man carrying a child following two women whom investigators believe were the abductors.

One of the women was already wearing a scarf that concealed most of her face. 

The two women and their male companion walked towards Leon Kilat St. until they were out of sight.

Investigators theorized that the man was only waiting for the two women to come back with the child.

Garciano appealed to the public to help them in their search for the missing child as they distributed cartographic sketches of the two women to all police stations in the city and other public areas.

Rogelio Rubio Jr., father of the child, said they will also distribute pictures of his son to hasten his return.

Pareja said she was cradling Jake when two women approached her at around 11 a.m. inside the mall.

She was accompanying her sister, Diana Simbajon, who was scheduled to leave on a bus for Ginatilan town at noon.

Before the incident, the sisters and the child arrived in Cebu City from Tabuelan town where they attended a fiesta celebration last Saturday.

Pareja handed the child over to the stranger after the stranger asked her to go after her sister and tell her she will accompany her going home.

Pareja later said she recognized one of the women as a relative of her sister’s common-law husband. –(FREEMAN)