Almost four months before her sudden death, former Public Works Undersecretary Maria Catalina Cabral appeared in a Senate hearing on the flood control corruption scandal on Sept. 1. — Supplied
MANILA: Police forensic investigators confirmed that it was Public Works Undersecretary Maria Catalina 'Cathy' Cabral who was found lifeless below Kennon Road in Benguet province and that she died from a fall to the rocky bottom of a ravine, but the mystery remains as to whether it was an accident or if she was pushed or had jumped to her death.
“Our DNA tests confirm that it was her,” Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla told the Inquirer on Saturday, adding that the forensic report “confirms that she died of blunt force trauma consistent with the fall” and noting that she had “no gunshot wound.”
Cabral’s driver, Ricardo Munos Hernandez, first reported to police that she was missing around Thursday, two hours after leaving her on the side of Kennon Road at Purok Maramal, Sitio Camp 5 in Barangay Camp 4 in Benguet’s Tuba town. It was her request to be left there on her own, according to Hernandez.
Police officers and a rescue team found her “unresponsive” around 8pm, 30 meters below the road, close to the waters of the Bued River. It took another four hours before she was brought up to Kennon, where a doctor declared her dead at past midnight on Friday.
Cabral’s family initially refused DNA tests and to have her remains autopsied, but later consented. The regional police forensic unit started the autopsy around 3:44am on Saturday in the presence of her husband, Cesar, at Cordillera Serenity Memorial in Baguio City, according to the Cordillera Police Office.
Police Maj. Nolan Genova confirmed that Cabral, 63, died from a “blunt traumatic injury consistent with a fall.”
Questions had been raised on whether it was really Cabral, a central figure in the unraveling multibillion-peso flood control corruption scandal, who died.
Sen. Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan urged the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) to conduct a DNA test on the remains to establish her identity.
“We do not wish to be insensitive if indeed death has been established, but considering that billions of pesos are involved, we call on Sec Jonvic Remulla to check and validate if the remains of Cathy Cabral were properly identified by the authorities concerned,” he said in a post on X on Friday.
“Faking death to escape criminal liability for corruption has happened before,” he said, referring to the case of businesswoman Mary Ann Maslog, who was charged in the Department of Education textbook scam in 1998.
In 2019, Maslog’s lawyers submitted her death certificate, leading to the dismissal of the case against her. She surfaced as “Dr Jessica Sese” in 2024, but the National Bureau of Investigation confirmed her true identity through her fingerprints.
Mamamayang Liberal Rep. Leila de Lima on Saturday warned that without a thorough and urgent investigation, key questions surrounding Cabral’s death—and the controversies tied to her work in government—may remain unanswered.
She criticised the PNP for appearing to be “botching up” the case by failing to promptly secure Cabral’s personal belongings, a lapse she said could compromise potential evidence.
Remulla earlier acknowledged that there were lapses in the handling of the investigation of the former official’s death, particularly in securing her personal effects.
Cabral’s cell phone and other personal belongings were turned over by the driver to her family, but the responding police officers did not get them back.
He told the Inquirer that Cabral’s husband will turn them over to the authorities after her burial. No date was immediately set.
The Office of the Ombudsman and the Independent Commission for Infrastructure, which is investigating the flood control anomalies, have called on the authorities to immediately retrieve Cabral’s phones, computers, other electronic devices, and documents to preserve their contents.
On Saturday, at least two images of a woman believed to be Cabral sitting on a concrete shoulder barrier on Kennon Road emerged—one was a selfie taken by her driver, and the other a dashcam video uploaded on TikTok by a motorist.
In the selfie taken by Hernandez, Cabral, who was wearing a light-colored shirt and denim pants, was sitting on the concrete barrier behind him and her parked car, looking down at the bottom of the ravine.
The video image showed apparently the same woman behind the same car and slightly facing toward the road, where many other vehicles were seen passing.
The video showed that it was taken at 10:15am on Dec 18. This seems to confirm Hernandez’s account that they first made a stop on Kennon around 10am before several police officers on patrol warned them not to linger on the edge of the road.
In connection with the continuing investigation of Cabral’s death, the NBI appealed to motorists who passed that section of Kennon Road to share their dashcam videos from around 3pm that day, the time that Hernandez said he had left the former public works official.
“Any information provided will be treated with strict confidentiality and used solely for lawful investigative purposes,” and the “pursuit of truth and justice,” it said in an advisory on Saturday.
The mountain highway is a popular route that connects Baguio City and Rosario in La Union and is known for its dangerous zigzags.
In a series of posts on Saturday, forensic pathologist Raquel Fortun said that the autopsy of a person who dies in suspicious circumstances should be mandatory and that the consent of the family or relatives was not required.
“But this is the Philippines,” she lamented.
Fortun said it was odd seeing Cabral’s body wrapped in what looked like a foil blanket instead of a regular body bag upon retrieval.
“First time to see that,” she said.
A video of the recovery of Cabral from the bottom of the ravine showed that her body was later placed in a black cadaver bag.
An initial police report said that Cabral was found “unconscious and unresponsive” and that she was declared dead by a doctor who accompanied the police only after she was hauled up to the road. - Philippine Daily Inquirer/ANN
