Missing American, Filipina GF found dead in Palawan

DUMAGUETE CITY, Philippines – A 44-year-old American and his 19-year-old Filipina girlfriend, who went missing at sea, along with four other male companions on a fishing trip off Negros Oriental seas, were found dead over the weekend at Barangay Mangsee of Balabac town in Palawan.

A report from the Negros Oriental Provincial Police Office confirmed that the two cadavers, found on board a motor banca at the seashore of Mangsee were those of Bradley Jay Fugate, a native of California, U.S.A., and his Filipina fiancee Cristina Tamondog Andig, of Barangay Maloh in Siaton, Negros Oriental.

Senior Superintendent Reynold Andot, NOrPPO deputy director for operations, on Monday said his command received a radio message from the Balabac Municipal Police Station on Sunday regarding the discovery of the two persons who, on February 13, were reported missing off Siaton seas.

Andot also confirmed that the Siaton Municipal Police Station also received a call from the Philippine Navy regarding the sighting on Sunday of the motor boat with the two corpses on board offshore of Mangsee.

Another report received by the Police Regional Office-7 in Cebu City said that a certain fisherman, identified as Jun Tamayo, reported to the Coast Guard detachment in Mangsee around 12:30 p.m. Saturday that he found a motor banca filled with water and with two decomposing bodies in it.

The motor banca was towed to shore in front of the Coast Guard detachment for investigation but no one from the island of Balabac was able to identify them. However, a wallet, which was among the articles recovered from the motor banca, contained identification cards of Fugate, the police report said.

Other items recovered were an Apple tablet, a shoulder bag with wallet and ID cards of Fugate, a Motorola cellphone, two flashlights, a wristwatch and a backpack, all of which are now in custody of the barangay secretary of Mangsee.

The cadavers were immediately buried at the Mangsee Christian Cemetery but exhumation of these was being requested by the Balabac Police at the Palawan Crime Laboratory Office.

Andot said the Siaton Police have already informed the family of Andig and who are now considering going to Balabac in Palawan.

Meanwhile, the whereabouts of the four companions of Fugate and Cristina were still unknown. They were Roseldo Andig, Jovie Fundador and Elmer Sabroso—all from Maloh—and Ray Tamondoc Benetes from Bais City. The six set sail on February 13 from Maloh for a “tuna fishing” expedition, police reports said.

Two days after they failed to return to Siaton, relatives of Cristina asked the Coast Guard and the police to launch a search for the missing persons. The PCG in turn immediately conducted aerial and water searches for the missing persons, said Ensign Cecille Romero Jimenez, chief of the Dumaguete Coast Guard.

Aside from the Coast Guard’s Islander aircraft, the Philippine Navy also deployed its Nomad aircraft to join the aerial search from February 16 to 18, said Jimenez. There were no signs of the missing motor banca, which Jimenez confirmed was overloaded then. The ill-fated boat of the six measured 28 feet long and three feet wide and was not designed to carry six people as well as set out to the high seas even though it had outriggers.

The search reached as far as Cagayancillo in Palawan and Zamboanga in Mindanao but to no avail, Jimenez said, adding that officials from the U.S. Embassy in Manila were closely monitoring the search with regular phone calls being made to her office.

Jimenez said the Dumaguete Coast Guard could not get through to its counterparts in Balabac, Palawan as telecommunications signal was apparently bad even though they already received Monday sketchy reports of the discovery of the motor banca and the two corpses on it.

She said they did further verification because of some conflicting information initially, such as the colors of the clothes that the girl and her boyfriend were wearing when they sailed off two weeks ago and those that were described in the police report received during the weekend.