Senate cites in contempt main suspect in Catherine Camilon's disappearance for alleged lying
A Senate committee cited in contempt the police who's the prime suspect in the disappearance of beauty queen Catherine Camilon for allegedly lying during the hearing.
During the March 19 hearing of the Senate public order and dangerous drugs committee, Allan De Castro said he wasn’t in a relationship with Camilon, who has been missing for five months now.
“Nagsasabi po ako ng totoo. Wala kaming relasyon, wala po,” De Castro told the commitee led by Sen. Ronald Dela Rosa.
But according to the National Bureau of Investigation and the Philippine National Police’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, affidavits of witnesses and photographs showed that De Castro and Camilon were in a relationship.
“Nagsisinungaling ka sa harapan ko,” Dela Rosa told De Castro. “I am not satisfied with your explanation.”
Sen. Robin Padilla made a motion to cite De Castro in contempt, which Dela Rosa approved.
De Castro was then taken into custody.
It was the embattled police officer’s first time to attend the Senate hearing. He skipped the session last February, citing his pregnant wife’s condition.
Dela Rosa called De Castro’s excuse a “flimsy alibi,” warning of an arrest warrant for those evading the Senate investigation.
De Castro’s driver Jeffrey Magpantay, who attended the March 19 hearing but skipped the February one due to supposed illness, meanwhile denied his involvement in the case.
“Wala po akong itetestigo laban kay Major (De Castro),” Magpantay said. “Wala po akong alam sa kaso.”
According to witnesses, Magpantay was seen directing the people who lifted Camilon while she was being moved to a vehicle.
They said the man who’s directing the people has a tattoo on his leg. Magpantay said he has one, but insisted that he only drove De Castro to private events like weddings and baptisms.
De Castro has been dismissed from service due to conduct unbecoming of a police officer, particularly his illicit relationship with Camilon since he has a wife and two kids. He, however, remained silent about her disappearance.
De Castro and three others, including Magpantay and two John Does, were previously sued for kidnapping and illegal detention.
His alleged relationship with Camilon was reportedly an abusive one, as police discovered 17 strands of hair, blood samples, and screenshots of messages containing threats and other verbal abuses.
Camilon was last spotted in a shopping mall in Lemery hours before being reported missing on Oct. 12. She, however, last told her mother, Rosario, that she was at a gasoline station in Bauan.
The beauty queen said she’d go to Batangas City for a meeting with Balisong Channel, an online media company where she was a former talent. But Balisong Channel said she didn't visit its office and was last there on Dec. 13, 2021.
De Castro was reportedly the person Camilon would meet up with on the day of her disappearance.
Camilon, who's also a public school teacher in Tuy, joined Miss Grand Philippines last July, during which Nikki De Moura of Cagayan de Oro won the crown.