Rosebud questioned on Campos killing

Police have questioned former police undercover agent Mary "Rosebud" Ong on the Dec. 5 killing of Chief Inspector John Campos, who was associated with former national police chief Sen. Panfilo Lacson.

Ong was summoned by the Philippine National Police’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group and gave a statement last Thursday in Camp Crame, Ong told The STAR.

Ong said CIDG director Chief Superintendent Eduardo Matillano told her that Campos friend Antonio Ma. Cabanban was being eyed as a possible suspect.

Cabanban was with Campos when he was shot dead by a lone gunman while having a snack at a roadside canteen in Parañaque City.

Matillano told her that investigators found several inconsistencies in Cabanban’s statements to the police on what happened, Ong said. "They said they suspect Cabanban because he has a very shady, very colorful and shady character," she said, claiming that Cabanban was dismissed from the Philippine Military Academy for cheating and smoking marijuana. The STAR tried but failed to reach Cabanban for comment.

Quoting investigators, Ong said police were wondering why Cabanban spent the night with Campos on the eve of his death.

Ong said she was surprised to learn from investigators that Campos sent his driver home using Cabanban’s car and went to Parañaque in his car with Cabanban at the wheel. It was unlikely of her former boyfriend to allow somebody else to drive his car other than his driver.

"Somebody may have been given instructions to follow Campos’ car and Cabanban may know who, or if ever, that somebody was tailing them," Ong said.

A former member of the now-defunct Narcotics Group of the PNP, Campos was relieved last year when Ong accused him of involvement in the illegal drug trade upon the orders of Lacson.

Campos was Ong’s handler and former girlfriend when she was an agent – using her now-famous codename "Rosebud" – for the police against the notorious Hong Kong Triad drug ring.

She is now in the custody of the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines during the course of the investigation into her allegations.

In earlier interviews, Ong said she suspected that Lacson ordered Campos killed to silence him. Lacson denied the allegations.

On Dec. 5 Campos was gunned down before dawn at a 24-hour roadside canteen in Barangay Don Bosco in Parañaque by a lone M-16-wielding gunman.

He suffered two gunshot wounds in the back and one in the head. Waitress Emily Dumlao, 29, died while undergoing treatment for bullet wounds in the abdomen.

When asked why she went to the CIDG and not to the Southern Police District, which is heading the investigation and whose jurisdiction covers Parañaque, she said she was called for questioning.