Authorities are checking the veracity of the claim of a mother that her three-month-old baby girl was abducted by a woman she does not know on November 2 while she was selling cigarettes at the Cebu South Bus Terminal (CBST).
Senior Supt. Marlon Tayaba, chief of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group Central Visayas (CIDG-7), said that they already have the document which they can use to track down the woman who took the baby.
“We will investigate the case and see if this is really kidnapping or something else,” Tayaba said.
Senior Supt. Rey Lyndon Lawas, chief of staff of the Police Regional Office in Central Visayas, also said that the mother’s claim should be thoroughly verified.
A copy of the closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage is also with the police which shows that Maricel Enriquez knew that the woman left with her daughter contrary to her earlier claim that the woman just disappeared without her knowledge.
The footage showed that the woman left a bag and Enriquez waved to her as if saying goodbye before she left with the baby.
It took her 30 minutes before she began searching for the woman and her baby.
But CSBT CCTV operator Van Derrick Gestopa pointed out that Enriquez did not even bother asking for help from police officers detailed at the terminal.
In a Facebook post, Chief Insp. Enrique Belciña, former head of the Police Community Relations (PCR) of Cebu City Police Office (CCPO), showed a photo of Enriquez and warned police officers of her modus operandi of claiming that her baby was abducted.
But Enriquez insisted that she was telling the truth.
She said she even went to Dalaguete to look for a woman they found on Facebook who looked like the woman who abducted her baby and has the same family name with the person in the money transfer receipt found in the bag that the alleged abductor left.
Enriquez also explained that she waved to the woman but she told her to return her baby.
The woman told her she will just go to her husband who is a bus conductor.
Rebecca Andales, Enriquez’s sister, also defended her.
She said if Enriquez wanted to sell her baby, she could have agreed with someone who offered to buy her daughter with a foreigner for P50,000.