CEBU CITY, Philippines — Authorities in Cebu City are on the lookout for a yellow Multicab van without a plate number after this was reported to have been allegedly involved in a possible kidnapping of a five-year-old boy in Talisay City near the Cebu South Coastal Road area.
The grandmother of the boy, identified as Merlita Empleyo, 55, reported the incident to a traffic enforcer of the Cebu City Transportation Office (CCTO) assigned at the Plaza Sugbo area at the South Road Properties at past 6 p.m.
According to Sidney Racaza, CCTO base control operator, in a phone interview with CDN Digital, Empleyo was crying when she sought the help of the traffic enforcer and informed him that a man on a yellow Multicab stopped near his five-year-old grandson, who was playing beside the road near the South Coastal Road in Talisay City, picked the boy up, boarded the vehicle and sped away.
She told the traffic enforcer that she ran after the van, but it sped away traversing the Cebu South Coastal Road heading to Cebu City.
Racaza said that Empleyo must have hitched a ride to the area where the traffic enforcer was since there were no passenger jeepneys passing along the Plaza Sugbo area and the place where the alleged kidnapping incident happened in Talisay City near the Cebu South Coastal Road area.
The traffic enforcer then alerted their main office about the incident, and they immediately deployed personnel in the intersections in the streets where the van might possibly pass through in Cebu City.
Cebu City Police and Mobile Patrol Group were also informed about the alleged incident, and they had continued to flag down vehicles similar to those described by Empleyo along S. Osmena Road and J. Luna Avenue in Cebu City. But as of 8 p.m., police had not caught the alleged “kidnapper.”
Racaza said that after the traffic enforcer informed the main office about the alleged kidnapping incident, he accompanied Empleyo to the nearest Cebu City Police Station, the Waterfront Police Station, but she was referred to the Talisay City Police Station because that was the where the incident happened.
But as of 9 p.m., according to the a police officer in the Talisay City Police Station, they had not received any report of the alleged kidnapping that day. /dbs