NBI, cops doubt missing Ecija coed was kidnapped

CABANATUAN CITY – The National Bureau of Investigation and the Philippine National Police are both at a loss on the case of a teenaged college student who went missing a month ago after being taken by her alleged abductors, saying the girl may not have been kidnapped.

Pedro Roque Jr., NBI-Cabanatuan chief, told The STAR that Rosemarie Ducut may not have been abducted but could have eloped, matching an earlier finding of the Central Luzon police. “There is no evidence that would show she (Rosemarie) was kidnapped,” Roque said.

Police investigators also maintained that they remain unconvinced that Ducut was abducted as she had claimed in a series of text messages. They said they found it odd that Ducut was able to text her mother “with considerable ease” while her supposed abductors were killing her other companions.

Senior Superintendent Jojo Gumban, regional investigator of the PNP based in Camp Olivas Pampanga, told The STAR that while they are conducting further investigation, they could not believe that Ducut was abducted, as she had alleged in text messages she had sent to her mother Milagros.      

Ducut, an education student of the Nueva Ecija University of Science and Technology, disappeared on Nov. 4, allegedly after unidentified suspects whisked her to a waiting van in Talavera, Nueva Ecija. She was reportedly on her way to attend practice teaching in Guimba town when the passenger jeep she was riding on developed engine trouble in Talavera, forcing her and her other companions to alight for another ride when dragged to the van.

Chief Superintendent Leon Nilo De la Cruz, PNP regional director for Central Luzon, earlier expressed doubts Ducut had been abducted. He said they received information she had eloped after flunking her studies.

The day she disappeared, she texted her mother and narrated in a series of text messages, how she, along with some companions, were whisked to a van in Talavera by the suspects, led by a Chinese-looking man wearing a nurse suit.

She said the van had several cadavers with no internal organs. While inside, she claimed the Chinese grabbed her bag containing her cellphone and money intended for payment of her tuition fees. She said her captors failed to notice another cellphone hanging around her neck.

She recalled that she was forced to inhale something, causing her to lose consciousness and when she regained her senses, she found herself in a tall building in a still unknown place.

In one of her text messages, Ducut said the bodies of her companions were being dumped into a river after a nurse took their innards. “Baka ako na ang susunod (I might be next),” she texted.    

Senior Supt. Arrazad Subong, regional intelligence officer, said a verification made by the Smart Network Office in this city showed that when Ducut was sending text messages, she was located somewhere in southern Manila.  

Subong said that an investigation made by the Talugtog police station showed no sufficient evidence that Ducut had indeed been abducted.

Senior Superintendent Ricardo Marquez, Nueva Ecija police director,said he was perplexed that Ducut had all the chances to use her cellular phone while under detention, even including periods and commas in her text. “This is not the kind of text message you expect from someone who had been abducted,” he said.