Raps filed vs Pilapil's missing companion

MANILA, Philippines - Veteran actress Pilar Pilapil’s missing companion, Rosel Jacosalem Peñas, was charged with the complex crime of kidnapping with frustrated murder before the Antipolo City prosecutor’s office, a police official said yesterday.

Chief Superintendent Samuel Pagdilao Jr., who heads the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, said the CIDG also included in the charge sheet two men who were with Peñas during the attack on Pilapil two weeks ago.

“The circumstances all pointed to the fact that Rosel Peñas had masterminded or acted in conspiracy with the other suspects in staging the premeditated attack against Pilapil, who was forcibly taken and held her in captivity against her will and in the occasion of which she was severely harmed and almost killed,” he said.

Pagdilao said they are just waiting for the fiscal’s office to resolve the case so a warrant can be issued for Peñas’ arrest. Her last known addresses were at the ALQ Condo-Dormitory on P. Campa street in Sampaloc, Manila and C-3 201 M.L. Quezon street in Hagonoy, Taguig City.

The CIDG, in a report submitted to the prosecutor’s office, said Peñas was driving a Kia Carens (CIZ-888) and picked Pilapil up at a mall in Pasig City at around 9 p.m. on April 14.

The CIDG’s Special Investigation Task Group (SITG) believes Peñas deceived Pilapil to join her on April 14 with “fabricated stories, which led to the conclusion that she acted in conspiracy with the two suspects if not masterminded the attacks on Pilapil,” according to Senior Superintendent Joel Napoleon Coronel, chief of the CIDG-National Capital Region.

CIDG investigators maintain that Peñas never left the country, as attested by her husband, Nelson Peñas, and based on travel records from the Bureau of Immigration.

The CIDG agents also gathered from Peñas’s landlady, Socorro Milagros Alcancia, that the suspect had been staying in the dormitory since Nov. 8, 2010. The CIDG submitted dormitory logbook records to the prosecutor’s office.

“Peñas was not a victim of kidnapping, contrary to how she wanted to make it appear when a text message was sent to Nelson on April 19,” Coronel said. He believes the text message, in which the sender demanded a ransom of P10 million, was part of Peñas’ alleged ploy.

According to Peñas’ husband, he and Rosel were together on April 15, a day after the attack, and it was Rosel who picked him up at the airport using the Carens that was supposedly taken by Pilapil’s attackers.

Coronel also added that a dormitory guard, Jennifer Tabilino, claimed she saw Peñas dressed as if she had just gotten out of bed on the morning of April 15.

“(This information) led the SITG to conclude that Peñas may have spent the night at her dormitory and was safe after the attack on Pilapil,” he added.

The guard also said Peñas left the dormitory on the morning of April 15, returned hours later, and was last seen leaving again with two large bags. Pagdilao said these testimonies substantiate the police’s findings that Peñas “was not a victim, but instead a suspect in the crime.”