CEBU CITY -- Ellah Joy Pique, 6, waved goodbye to two friends and classmates as she boarded a black sports utility vehicle,
joining the Caucasian man who drove it and a Filipino woman on the passenger seat.
That was past 4 p.m. last Tuesday.
At 7:55 a.m. Thursday, Ellah was found dead at the foot of a cliff along the national road in Barangay Sayaw,
Barili town, more than 40 kilometers away from home.
Her naked body was tightly wrapped, along with three rocks, in two cream-colored blankets.
Gray cables snaked around the tiny bundle.
The discovery ended a frantic search by her father Renante, 40, who began looking for Ellah at 5 p.m. Tuesday
when she failed to come home from the Calajo-an Elementary School in Minglanilla town.
Ellah Joy is his youngest child and only daughter.
The Philippine National Police (PNP) Crime Laboratory in Central Visayas will conduct an autopsy on the body,
which was dumped near a beach resort.
The Grade 1 pupil's belongings were discovered in Patupat, the barangay next to Sayaw, around 9 a.m.
These included a pink checkered skirt, pink shorts, a sleeveless white blouse, her violet slippers, a lunch box and her school bag filled with notebooks.
Two P50 bills were among the items found in Patupat, which surprised the girl's father.
"Naa'y kwarta? Wa ko kahatag og kwarta niya (There's money? I did not give her any money)," he said.
Renante said the last time he saw Ellah was at noon last Tuesday, when the girl went home for lunch.
The next time he saw her, she was in the Divine Heart Funeral Parlor in Ronda town.
He said he scoured Cebu City in search of his daughter and filed a missing person report at the Mambaling Police Station,
apart from asking for help at the Minglanilla Police Station.
Renante and the Minglanilla police, headed by Chief Inspector Laurel Almirante, learned from Ellah's two classmates
and companions that they were heading home from school when the black car, with brown lines on its sides, stopped in front of them.
This happened just a few meters away from the school.
The two children remembered that the license plate number ended in "679" but couldn't recall the prefix.
According to the children, the woman told Ellah to get inside the car.
"Day, sakay diri kay ihatud tika sa inyoha, kaila mi sa imong mama (I'll bring you home. I know your mother)," she reportedly said.
Without any hesitation, Ellah, who was very friendly, got inside and sat on the woman's lap. She waved goodbye.
That was the last time her friends saw Ellah alive.
SPO3 Elsa Albuera, chief of the women's desk of Barili Police Station, said judging from the information relayed by the two children, it is possible the case was an attempt at human trafficking.
"The younger the victim, the higher the price," she said.
Renante said he regularly walked with his daughter from home to school and, later, back. But that afternoon, he decided not to because he had to bring his motorcycle to a repair shop.
"Wa gyud ko magdahum. Pinangga kaayo to nako siya nga anak (I did not expect this would happen. I loved her so much)," he said.
Police investigators from the towns of Barili and Minglanilla are working together to identify the perpetrators. The police are also working with the Land Transportation Office to trace the vehicle.
Laurel, in an interview with Sun.Star Cebu, said they are trying to come up with the sketches of the Caucasian man and the Filipino woman, through the help of the two witnesses.
Cebu Provincial Police Office (CPPO) Director Erson Digal directed Laurel to lead the joint team of investigators.
Digal said he also sent a team from the Special Reaction Unit (SRU) to Calajo-an to improve police visibility and to reassure the residents.
He appealed to the residents, especially those who witnessed the abduction, to help the police by reporting what they have seen.
Homicide investigators will invite witnesses to help the police sketch the suspects' faces.
These witnesses include habal-habal drivers and elementary pupils who saw the an unidentified woman and a Caucasian man whose vehicle the child boarded, said PO2 Humprey Alpas of the Minglanilla Police Station.
Two Minglanilla police operatives - PO2 Hazel Caballero, a women's desk officer, and PO1 Edsel Ricablanca - escorted the girl's father to Barili town to check on the body found there. (Jovy Taghoy-Gerodias/With Garry Cabotaje/Sun.Star Cebu)
Published in the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on February 10, 2011.
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