Still shot from the CCTV footage at the Basilica Minore del Sto. Niño that shows Chera Jane Quizon holding the 11-day old baby of Irene Capuno on the day the two disappeared. (Photo by NESTLE SEMILLA / Inquirer Visayas)
CEBU CITY — Police are looking for a woman who allegedly walked away with her friend’s 11-day-old baby girl at the Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral in downtown Cebu City last Feb. 21.
The infant’s 31-year-old mother Irene Capuno sought the assistance of the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO) on Monday to help her recover her daughter whom she had entrusted to Chera Jane Quizon when she went inside the cathedral’s toilet.
“All I want is my daughter,” she said in Cebuano in an interview on Monday. “I promise not to go after her [Quizon] as long she will return my daughter.”
Supt. Ryan Devaras, chief of the Cebu City Investigation and Detective Management Branch, appealed to the community to provide any information on the suspect and the missing baby.
“We’re conducting an investigation and we want to know what the motive of the suspect was in taking away the baby,” he said.
Capuno, a resident of Sitio Ilaya, Barangay Guinacot, Danao City in northern Cebu, said she met Quizon at the city’s boardwalk while she went caroling in December 2017.
Irene Capuno holds a picture of her baby with the suspect Chera Jane Quizon captured by a CCTV camera shortly before Quizon disappeared with the baby. (Photo by NESTLE SEMILLA / Inquirer Visayas)
“I was seven months pregnant at that time,” she said. “She [Quizon] befriended me and told me that she wanted to have my baby. I said no,” she said.
Capuno said they later became friends.
Last Feb. 21, 11 days after she gave birth to her youngest child, Quizon went to their house and invited them to go with her to the Basilica Minore del Sto. Niño to thank God for a healthy baby.
Capuno said she, the infant, and Quizon stayed for some time at the centuries-old church before they went to a department store in downtown Cebu City to eat.
While on their way home, Capuno said they dropped by the toilet of the Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral which was near the Basilica Minore del Sto. Niño.
“She used the comfort room first and afterwards offered to carry my baby while I went inside the comfort room,” she said. “When I went out of the toilet, she and my baby were gone.”
Police secured photos of the suspect while she was with the complainant at the basilica as shown by footage from the closed-circuit television (CCTV) camera of the church.
There were no CCTV footage, however, outside the cathedral’s toilet. /atm