MINUTES before boarding her Manila flight, Alice Cabalan bid goodbye to her friend Melinda Ponce who drove her to the Mactan Cebu International Airport (MCIA) at 2 a.m. last Sunday.
The 53-year-old Cabalan said she had no idea that it would be her last meeting with her best friend.
But even before, Cabalan said Melinda told her about her troubles with her husband Emmanuel Ponce.
Melinda, her children Ellaine Grace, Heather Joy and Emlin Bridge and their maid were gunned down by her husband at their home in Palm Village Subdivision, barangay Tangke, Talisay City at 8 a.m. last Sunday.
Cabalan said it was she who convinced Melinda, a gym buddy, to transfer to Cebu. She said she met Melinda through Emmanuel.
“My husband is also a seaman. I was Emmanuel’s chaperon when he was courting Melinda,” Cabalan said.
A week before the massacre, Cabalan said Melinda asked her if she could stay at her home. She said Ellaine Grace later fetched her mother at her home.
Cabalan said she kept Melinda’s domestic problems to herself.
“I was close to her. She even asked me once to tend to her children since she had no maid at the time,” she said.
Cabalan said she took care of Embrelaince “Ember” Ponce, the youngest child and only survivor, when she was still a child.
In a phone interview, Cabalan said the relatives of Ember Ponce agreed to let the family be buried in Sorsogon.
But she said Ember decided to have her father buried in Poblacion, Talisay City.
Elsewhere, neighbors of the Ponce family claimed that they saw unusual happenings outside the family home.
Barangay tanod Roberto Bacus said they would often hear dogs howling late at night.
He said the neighbors also heard a telephone ring even if the line was disconnected.
A taxi was also spotted stopping by the house and opening a door with no one coming out of the vehicle.
Fr. Roy Cabradilla of Mary’s Little Children Community said it’s best for the neighbors to pray for the family.
SPO1 Mikie Espina of the investigator of the Talisay City police said they will also verify reports that Emmanuel used drugs.
He said Emmanuel’s nephew Paul Redula and the husband of slain maid Anastacia Deniega told them that Emmanuel used drugs.
Scene of the Crime Operatives (SOCO) also took blood samples on the Ponce house. Correspondent Rhea Ruth V. Rosell and Gabriel C. Bonjoc