EDITORIAL — Suicide, murder, or something else?

The latest development in the case of the flood-control anomalies involving the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) looks like something out of a crime movie; someone high up in the conspiracy has been found dead.

In this case it was former DPWH undersecretary Maria Catalina Cabral. In the most recent report of the Independent Committee on Infrastructure, Cabral is one of 15 officials recommended for plunder and bribery charges over budget insertions made to the National Expenditure Programs from 2023 to 2025.

As per reports, Cabral asked her driver to leave her alone along a stretch of Kennon Road in Benguet last Thursday. The driver followed instructions and went to get gas. When he returned for her she was nowhere to be found and he contacted the police.

Later on, her body was found down a deep ravine. The police probe into her demise has already gone off on the wrong foot. Well-meaning policemen immediately turned over her cellphone to her family, perhaps not knowing how important she was to the ongoing investigation.

Was it suicide? Was it murder? Was it something else? We don’t know yet.

Given the realm of possibilities, suicide is a likely scenario. Cabral was one of the key figures in the ongoing investigation into the flood-control anomalies. Along with the possibility that she could be tapped to turn state witness is also that she will be found with her own share of culpability. Was the thought of her acts being exposed and her name dragged through the mud so heavily burdening her soul that she thought there was only one way out?

But then again, so is murder. For her be taken so suddenly out of the picture, for her not to be able to explain many things, would be quite convenient for many powerful individuals implicated in this anomaly. Did someone act on someone else’s orders to find the most opportune moment to take her out?

If it’s the latter then this would mean someone powerful is desperately trying to tie up loose ends. In this case it’s also likely that he, she, or they won’t stop there.