Abandoned SUV provides disappearance case clues

CAMP VICENTE LIM, Laguna—An abandoned vehicle recovered from a mall parking lot in Carmona, Cavite, could provide clues to the case of a businesswoman who went missing last week.

The vehicle was a silver Toyota Prado with license plate JUS 77.

Senior Supt. John Bulalacao, Cavite police director, on Wednesday said security guards of Waltermart in Barangay Mabuhay in Carmona went to police on Monday to report an abandoned vehicle at the mall parking lot over the weekend.

Mall records submitted to police said unidentified persons left the vehicle at around 2 p.m. on Jan. 20.

The vehicle was traced to a businesswoman who went missing in Quezon City. The woman’s family had claimed the vehicle on Tuesday.

Bulalacao, however, said he could not further discuss the case, which is now being handled by the Police Anti-Crime and Emergency Response

(Pacer), a special unit that usually handles kidnapping cases.

A source from another police unit, who spoke on condition of anonymity for lack of authority to speak, described the woman as a 41-year-old Filipina, married to a Filipino-Chinese businessman. The woman owned trucking services in Quezon City while her husband is vice president of a known shopping mall.

Police said the woman was aboard the SUV when she left home at around 10 a.m. on Jan. 20 to go to a bank also in Quezon City.

Before she disappeared, the woman was seen in a coffee shop inside the posh Corinthian Village. Police requested footage from the coffee shop’s security cameras.

The source asked that the businesswoman’s identity be withheld so as not to endanger her life.

Police refused to say if it was a case of kidnapping, indicating that the missing businesswoman is a prominent person.