By Maricar Cinco
Inquirer Southern Luzon
She survived seven hours in a pitch-black pit, enduring 24 stab wounds in the chest and back and a bullet wound in the right leg.
Now confined at the Laguna provincial hospital, panting under an oxygen mask, police informant Grace Capistrano could only nod when asked if she and her baby were okay. She is four months pregnant.
She could not speak, but was able to roll over to show her wounds.
Her father, Raul Capistrano, described his eldest daughter as “maligalig†(wild) but strong, and said he was grateful that she and her child emerged alive from the ordeal.
At around 7 p.m. on Wednesday, PO2 Mario Natividad and PO1 Antenor Mariquit picked up Capistrano, 23, from her house in Angono, Rizal. They shoved her into a car and tied her hands behind her with duct tape.
She was repeatedly stabbed when she and her captors were on their way to Laguna, said Senior Superintendent Gilbert Cruz, police director of the province.
At Barangay Pinagsangjan in Pagsanjan, the cops pushed Capistrano out of the car and she rolled down a ravine off the road. They shot her in the leg and drove away, Cruz said.
Amazing strength
Farmer Mariano Pelayo, whose hut is about 50 meters from where the cops left Capistrano, said he was waiting for the lottery draw on TV when he heard gunfire.
“But I thought it was nothing. I just ignored it and went to sleep,†Pelayo, 78, told the Inquirer.
Capistrano’s knock awakened the farmer and his wife at around 4 a.m. on Thursday.
Pelayo said he found Capistrano on his doorstep with “blood all over her.â€
He said she told him she had many wounds and asked to be taken to a hospital: “Tatang, dalhin nyo po ako sa ospital, marami po akong sugat.â€
The farmer said it took an hour before a jeepney passed and the driver agreed to help take Capistrano to the Pagsanjan police station in the town proper.
Pelayo said Capistrano must have crawled up the bushy ravine thinking that the sound of dogs barking meant that there was a house nearby.
Amazed at how Capistrano survived, he said: “That girl was so strong. She could still walk and talk [despite her wounds], and she was even pregnant. She just asked for three glasses of water,†Pelayo said.
‘Hulidap’
Capistrano was a “witness†to the hulidap rackets (robbery and extortion) of policemen in Rizal, according to Calabarzon police director Chief Superintendent Samuel Pagdilao Jr.
Mariquit is based in the Cainta police station; Natividad was recently assigned to Rizal province from the regional police office.
Laguna police director Cruz quoted reports saying that Capistrano was “an informant of the hulidap.â€
But he said he did not know the relationship between Capistrano on one hand and Mariquit and Natividad on the other.
Raul Capistrano was surprised to learn about his daughter’s “job.â€
“I didn’t know she was close to policemen. We rarely see each other, and I’m really not privy to her activities,†he said.
The father apparently lived separately from the family, and his eldest daughter grew up with her grandparents.
He said he had not met the man who had sired the baby in her womb, or even the father of her other child.
He described her as a wild one who often hung out with her barkada (gang), but in whom he had seen a brave streak: “Maligalig yan pero nakitaan ko ng tapang.â€
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