Tuba, Benguet police chief relieved from post due to lapses in Cabral probe —PNP

The chief of Tuba, Benguet municipal police was relieved from his post due to lapses in the investigation of the death of former Department of Public Works and Highways undersecretary Maria Catalina Cabral, the Philippine National Police (PNP) said Saturday.

PNP Public Information Office chief Police Brigadier General Randulf Tuaño said Tuba municipal police chief Police Major Peter Camsol was relieved from his post, citing information from the regional director of the Cordillera Administrative Region police, according to GMA Integrated News reporter Bea Pinlac.

“Just now…only the chief of police of Tuba is relieved,” he told GMA Integrated News in a text message.

Tuaño said the regional police office found the Tuba police remiss in securing the pieces of evidence in probing Cabral’s death.

Meanwhile, Benguet Police chief Police Colonel Lambert Suerte was retained in his post after “he was able to negotiate with the deceased family for the autopsy, Tuaño said.

The family of Cabral has expressed willingness to allow an autopsy after her body was discovered in a ravine in Benguet, according to the police on Friday.

They initially opposed authorities' order to have her remains autopsied due to the supposed suspicious circumstances of her death. Her husband Cesar said it is their family’s wish to bring her remains back to Metro Manila, so they can properly grieve. 

Both the Department of Justice and the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) have ordered the National Bureau of Investigation and the Philippine National Police, respectively, to conduct an autopsy.

The DILG has also ordered a DNA test to ascertain the identity of the remains.

Cabral's husband, Cesar, however said that he and their children have already identified the body.

On Thursday evening, Cabral was found “unconscious and unresponsive” about 20 to 30 meters below a highway, several hours after she asked her driver to drop her off at a section of Kennon Road.

The Tuba Municipal Station chief said a municipal doctor pronounced Cabral dead at the scene beside the Bued River at 12:03 a.m. on Friday.

The Office of the Ombudsman earlier directed authorities in Benguet to secure the cellphone and other gadgets of Cabral.

Interior and Local Government Secretary Jonvic Remulla on Friday said there were lapses when the police turned over the belongings, including the cellphone, of Cabral to her family after she was found dead in a ravine in Benguet. 

Also on Saturday, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) urged motorists who recently traveled along Kennon Road to provide dashcam footage of the area where Cabral was last seen alive in Tuba, Benguet.

The NBI made its appeal to "all motorists" who passed Kennon Road on Thursday, December 18 within the 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. time window. Those who "may have dashcam footage" were urged to share their video of the area along Sitio Maramal Camp 5, Barangay 4 in Tuba.

A seasoned bureaucrat once described as a "model" for "Women in Infrastructure," Cabral found herself embroiled in the flood control project anomalies.

The Department of Justice was supposed to refer to the Ombudsman a plunder case that involved Cabral in relation to the alleged anomalous flood control projects in Bulacan before her death, Prosecutor General Richard Fadullon said in a press conference on Friday. —with a report from Bea Pinlac/KG/ VDV, GMA Integrated News