MANILA, Philippines—The woman who is a passionate campaigner against violence on women has herself become a victim.
Actress and beauty queen Pilar Pilapil was stabbed and beaten late Thursday night under yet unclear circumstances.
Pilapil, 60, was left for dead by two armed men in a grassy lot at the foot of a hill in Piedra Blanca Subdivision in Barangay (village) San Luis, Antipolo City, according to Senior Superintendent Manuel Prieto, Rizal police director.
The armed men drove off aboard the Kia vehicle of Pilapil, taking with them her companion identified as Rossel Rosalem, Prieto said.
The badly wounded Pilapil appeared at the gate of farm worker Marlon Viray at 11:20 on Thursday night, pleading for help.
“Tulungan niyo ako, tulungan niyo ako (Help me),” Viray, 27, quoted Pilapil as saying.
He told the Inquirer that Pilapil, barefoot and wearing black tights and a dress stained with blood, was shaking the wooden gate and telling him and his companions that her life was in danger.
“Her lips were broken. She had bruises on her face and she was bleeding,” Viray said, adding that they took her immediately to the Antipolo District Hospital.
It appeared appeared to be a carjacking case, but the Philippine National Police on Friday said it had yet to verify this.
Chief Supt. Leonardo Espina, director of the PNP Highway Patrol Group, said police investigators had yet to speak with Pilapil to determine what had happened to her and her companion.
“In fact, we still have to check who really owned the Kia vehicle that the victims used,” Espina told the Inquirer.
Awake, talking
Pilapil has since been moved to The Medical City in Pasig City. She is now out of danger, according to talent manager Annabelle Rama, her friend and colleague in show business.
Rama was seen at the hospital Friday afternoon although hospital authorities initially refused to confirm that Pilapil was confined there.
“I am very sad, and I couldn’t bring myself to ask her what happened. Let us just pray for her,” Rama, speaking in Filipino, told reporters in an ambush interview.
“She is out of danger. She is awake and is able to talk,” Rama said.
The Medical City said it would not issue any medical bulletin regarding Pilapil.
An insider who spoke on condition of anonymity told the Inquirer that it was Pilapil’s request that there be no interviews with members of the media.
Celebrity
Viray, whose house is some 15 meters from where Pilapil was supposedly dumped, said she told him that she had been waving at passing trucks but no one stopped to help.
He said he did not know then that the apparently rich woman seeking help was a beauty queen who won the Miss Philippines-Universe title in 1969 and subsequently became an actress.
“I learned she was Pilar Pilapil when she was asked for her name at the hospital,” Viray said. “‘Really, you are Pilar Pilapil?’ the doctor said. Then he turned to us and said we were with a celebrity.”
Viray said he told police what Pilapil told him while he and his companions were taking her to the hospital:
Pilapil and Rosalem were at the Marikina Riverbanks Center in Barangay (village) Barangka, Marikina City, when two men suddenly boarded the car they were riding in and divested them of their belongings at gunpoint.
The men beat Pilapil and stabbed her repeatedly in the abdomen and below her armpit. She did not say whether her friend was also attacked.
Nothing unusual
The Marikina police chief, Senior Supt. Gabriel Lopez, said the security guards at the Riverbanks Center noticed no commotion or unusual incident in the area.
But in an interview with police, Pilapil’s husband, Bernie Peñas, said the actress left him at Robinson’s Galleria at 7 p.m. on Thursday to meet Rosalem “for an important transaction.”
“At around 11:30 p.m., he was shocked when he received a telephone call from the Antipolo police informing him of the incident,” Lopez said in a report submitted to the Eastern Police District.
The hilly side of Barangay San Luis is a favorite dumping ground of salvage victims, according to residents who wondered why media crews were converging at the site.
The residents were surprised to learn that a celebrity had been found wounded in their area because a TV crew had been shooting a show from 5 p.m. on Thursday until 4 a.m. on Friday.
“There were bright lights on the street. But apparently the place where Pilapil was taken was far away from the fans and the TV crew,” a security guard at the Piedra Blanca Subdivision said.
PNP Director General Raul Bacalzo has directed the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group led by Chief Supt. Samuel Pagdilao to lead the inquiry into the incident in cooperation with the Marikina and Antipolo police.
Bacalzo also instructed all PNP territorial units in Metro Manila and nearby provinces to help locate Pilapil’s companion.
Citing initial information, Pagdilao said Pilapil did not own the missing vehicle.
He echoed Espina’s statement that it was premature to classify it as a a carjacking incident.—With reports from Marlon Ramos and Julie M. Aurelio