With a bulletproof vest on top of her pink blouse, a handcuffed Bella Ruby Santos returned to Cebu beaming.
The former fugitive arrived at 5:25 p.m. yesterday at the Mactan Cebu International Airport, where over a dozen agents of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and a Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team surrounded her.
Law enforcers said they worried that sympathizers of the slain 6-year-old Ellah Joy Pique, whose kidnap and murder are being pinned on Santos, may try to attack her.
But it was only Renante Pique, the slain girl’s father, who watched silently across the street several meters away behind a roped area for well-wishers.
“Wala ko naguol nga nadakpan ko (I’m not sad that I got arrested),” Santos told reporters later at the NBI-7 office, where she had a tearful reunion with her mother.
The handcuffs on her wrists were covered with a white towel as she stepped out of the airport flanked by NBI Regional Director Edward Villarta and a female NBI agent. She was led directly to a van that took her to Cebu City.
Santos was escorted on the commercial flight by NBI agent Arnel Pura, the one who confronted her Friday afternoon while she was shopping with a female friend in SM Megamall in Mandaluyong City.
At 8 a.m. today, Santos will be presented to Cebu Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia, her prospective “jailer” as warden of the Cebu provincial jail.
Then she will be presented to Regional Trial Court Judge Ester Veloso of Branch 6 for the return of the arrest warrant.
Defense lawyers yesterday filed a motion for reconsideration to try anew to get the court to recall its arrest warrant issued July 12 against Santos and her British boyfriend Ian Charles Griffiths. If the judge refuses, the lawyers said they want her to inhibit from handling the case.
The judge has yet to rule on the pleading.
In a press conference at the NBI-7 office, Santos showed no signs of fear on her face.
“I know who the informant was,” Santos told reporters. “But I won’t tell you the name because the person might get popular.”
Her once waist-long hair was cropped short. She wore large shades, silver earrings and a blouse with a plunging neckline atop white slacks.
“I enjoyed my temporary freedom. It was part of my plan to surrender. Now, I will be waiting for whatever will happen,” Santos told reporters.
She described her almost three months on the lam as “partying” to enjoy her freedom.
“Wala ko nagtago. Kon nitago pa ko, dili unta ko madakpan (I wasn’t hiding. If I were hiding, I wouldn’t have been arrested),” Santos said.
She denied paying off an agent of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group in Central Visayas (CIDG-7) P20,000 a month to alert her about police movements.
“Let them show evidence (of bribery),” she said about an earlier report that Renante Pique said a police officer confided to him to explain why the woman had managed to elude police officials for almost three months.
Santos said she spent most of her time in Manila, frequenting Greenbelt in Makati City and out-of-town vacation spots like Puerto Galera, Boracay and Subic.
Asked how she could afford the trips, she said her British boyfriend Griffiths gave her the money.
Santos and Griffiths are facing charges of kidnapping with homicide in relation to the death of Ellah Joy last Feb. 8.
She said she was in touch with Griffiths, who left the country a day after Ellah Joy’s body was found below a ravine in Barili town.
“We will be happy together,” Santos said.
Griffiths was arrested by law enforcers in London last April and held for two nights after the charges were filed in Cebu but was later released.
Cebu prosecutors are asking the Department of Justice to initiate a government-to-government request to bring Griffiths back to the country, a move opposed by defense lawyer Rameses Villagonzalo.
“At the outset, Ian Charles is reiterating his expressed objection to the taking of jurisdiction over his person by the court. The allegations are based on pure fabrications,” said Villagonzalo who met with Santos at the NBI-7 office.
Asked about the new tattoos on her legs, Santos gave a boisterous laugh, and said she had them as “part of my moving on and to escape depression.”
Around 30 of Santos’ relatives and neighbors in Naga City, south Cebu, waited for her outside the NBI-7 compound in Cebu City.
Some wore white T-shirts that said: “Bella and Ian are innocent.” Only her mother Perla was allowed to enter the office.
The father of murder victim Ellah Joy, Renante, and her grandmother Lucy stood across the airport arrival area to catch a glimpse of Santos.
Renante took a leave from his job in an export company in Minglanilla just to see Santos at the airport.
“I just want to see her disposition,” Renante said in Cebuano.
Santos’ family hopes she is detained closer to home in the Naga City Jail instead of the Cebu provincial jail.
Capitol Security Consultant Cesar Veloso assured that she is safe in the jail; she will be among 59 female detainees.
No special treatment will be given her, he said.
“She will not be harmed,” he said.
“We will welcome her. Dancing is voluntary,” he said, referring to the provincial jail inmates’ international fame for its choreographed dances that started with the Michael Jackson hit “Thriller.”
Detention prisoners are held here while their trial is ongoing until a final judgment is rendered. /Ador Vincent Mayol, Reporter