‘Rosebud’ gets death threats from anonymous caller

Mary "Rosebud" Ong said yesterday that she has been receiving death threats from an unidentified person soon after he former lover, Superintendent John Campos, was killed in Parañaque City.

"Rosebud, Corpus, Ramos, susunod na kayo at alam ko lahat ang balak ninyo…" the sender told Ong, using the alias "Sniper," in a text message sent to her Dec. 12 at 4:15 p.m.

"He previously claimed that he was the one who sniped John," Ong told The STAR in a phone interview.

According to Ong, the text sender could be referring to Abelardo Ramos, a witness in the 1995 Kuratong Baleleng rubout and to Col. Victor Corpuz of the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (ISAFP). Instead of being scared by the text message, Ong said she was simply "disappointed and frustrated because there’s no justice." Ong said she has no idea from whom the text messages are from. Known to usually implicate Sen. Panfilo "Ping" Lacson, Ong said she was certain that threats did not come from him or did he direct anyone to do it for him.

"Pampagulo na lang ang mga ito. But he has many supporters," Ong said.

She said that she and her lawyer, Leonard de Vera, have agreed to submit her sworn statement to the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) instead of Parañaque City police, which is the lead investigating unit in the Campos slay. Ong said they decided to submit a statement to the NBI instead after Deputy Director General Reynaldo Velasco, chief of the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO), said last week that she refused to submit a statement to the police.

Southern Police District (SPD) director Chief Supt. Jose Gutierrez Jr. and Parañaque police officer-in-charge Supt. Wency Pascual, said that Velasco’s statement was a result of a "miscommunication."