Family members of Cecilia Bustamante await information on her whereabouts. Bustamante has been missing in the United States since Oct. 28. —PHOTO FROM CECILIA BUSTAMANTE’S FACEBOOK PAGE
ILOILO CITY—The family of a 42-year-old Filipino from Capiz province who went missing in the United States in October last year has appealed for help from authorities in finding her, saying she disappeared under mysterious circumstances.
“We are asking for your help. My husband and I do not know what to do,” Elsie Bustamante, mother of Cecilia Bustamante, said in a video message in Hiligaynon. “I’m appealing for your help to find my daughter so she can go home,” the mother said in a message posted by the Capiz Aksyon News Center of the provincial government’s information office.
Cecilia, a native of Barangay Intungcan in Pontevedra town in Capiz, has not been seen since Oct. 28 after she “frantically” left the restaurant where she worked in Atlanta City.
She has a 7-year-old son with Filipino-American husband Carlo Johnson, said Geneluz Bermejo, Cecilia’s third cousin and close friend.
Police search
Cecilia’s disappearance was reported to the police only after five weeks by a friend and not her husband, according to a report of WSB-TV 2 in Atlanta.
Police searched the couple’s house in Chamblee City, also in Georgia, and found her credit cards, bank card, identification card and passport locked in a safe.
The WSB-TV 2 report quoted Capt. Ernesto Ford of the Chamblee police who believed Cecilia did not voluntarily leave Chamblee or Georgia and that “she could be in grave danger or worse.”
Ford also told the Atlanta television network that Cecilia’s husband “showed a total lack of concern for his wife and the mother of his child.”
Cecilia’s friends told the television network that she was close to her son and will not just leave him.
Members of the Filipino-American Association of Atlanta has started a campaign to help find Cecilia. They have distributed flyers and put up the page, “Where is Cecilia Bustamante?” on Facebook for anyone who can send information on her whereabouts.
Cecilia’s family believes her disappearance had something to do with her troubled marriage.
Abused
“She told us that her husband beats her up and that he was [the] jealous [type],” Cecilia’s younger brother, Rey, told the Inquirer.
The eldest of six siblings, Cecilia left for the United States in 2007 hoping to help her family. Cecilia has been sending money to support her parents, now in their 60s and who only depend on farming, and the education of her youngest sibling.
She first worked as helper for the family of her future husband and later at a restaurant, Bermejo said.
“She limited her time online because she said her husband would feel jealous and keep asking her whom she was communicating with,” Bermejo said.
Rey said they rely only on updates and information provided by Cecilia’s friends in the United States.
“I have stopped calling my parents because they keep on crying when we talk about my sister,” Rey said.