‘Missing’ lawyer safe; please don’t troll her, hubby asks

Her husband’s Facebook post, shared more than 4,000 times, sparked worry that she had been robbed or worse. So you can imagine the relief lawyer Jamaal James Calipayan felt when he confirmed that his wife Sarah was safe, after all.

Jamaal appealed to the public not to blame his wife, also a lawyer, who turned out to have spent the night in a hotel, after having some drinks. “She’s been through enough and she could use a little positivity rather than trolling from any of us,” Jamaal said.

A lawyer who was reported missing by her husband turned up safe on Wednesday morning in the parking lot of a mall in Banilad, Cebu City.

Lawyer Jamaal James Calipayan, chief of staff for Rep. Jonas Cortes (Cebu Province, 6th district) had asked for help in a Facebook post to find his wife Sarah, 33, also a lawyer.

“I would like to sincerely thank every one of the 4,500 people who shared the post I made earlier when my wife disappeared. I am a worrier and it’s my fault it has escalated but the circumstances warranted that I do everything in my capacity to find the love of my life. I would like to think that any man who loves his woman and vice-versa would have done the same,” he said in a follow-up post.

Jamaal and some police investigators located Sarah’s Honda City through a tracking app in a cell phone. They found the vehicle in the Banilad Town Centre parking lot around 8 a.m.

Jamaal was worried because they lost contact after the last text messages he received from Sarah, which were at 11 p.m. and 11:45 p.m. Tuesday. She assured him that she was on her way home, but could no longer be reached after that.

An hour before Sarah resurfaced yesterday morning, Jamaal watched police investigators search his wife’s car. He had reported her disappearance to the Cebu City Police Office’s hotline 166 and the traffic group.

He said his wife had tendered her resignation from a real estate company where she worked as a legal officer.

The reunited couple embraced when they saw each other at 11:50 a.m. yesterday in the parking lot. Both cried. They left the place together in one car.