BACOLOD CITY, Negros Occidental, Philippines – A young woman who just got off work had the scare of her life when she thought she was being abducted by the driver of a tricycle she was riding in.
Mary Rose Oquindo, 26, had scrapes and bruises when she jumped off the tricycle’s sidecar and rolled onto the road late in the evening of Monday, 29 August 2022.
The incident happened more than a week after rumors started to spread anew here about young women being snatched by men riding on a van, a claim that police had already declared as fake news.
Oquindo told probers of Station 8 that she rode the tricycle with plate number 0601-0943785 in the evening of that day, supposedly to bring her home to San Roque in Tangub village.
She said, however, that when they reached past the Murcia-Alijis Road, she sensed that the driver was not going in the direction of her home that prompted her to tell him several times to stop the vehicle.
The driver, however, did not heed her and continued on his way but when the driver turned into a street going inside Greenplains II Subdivision, Oquindo decided to act.
She jumped and scraped her knees and had other injuries.
The driver, Peter Zulueta, told Oquindo and Station 8 chief, Lt. Joery Puerto, that he had no intention of abducting her but was actually trying to avoid a police checkpoint.
Oquindo and Zulueta faced each other at Station 8 after they were invited by Puerto who told DNX they cannot file a complaint against Zulueta because no crime was committed.
Asked if there was indeed a checkpoint in the area where the incident happened, Puerto said there was one but at Bangga CEGASCO several kilometers south from where Oquindo jumped.
