Will the real Sheila Aballe reappear?

President Duterte apparently didn’t believe the woman who presented herself as an evacuee from the Sept. 20 landslide in Tina-an, City of Naga was a truly concerned resident of the sitio where the tragedy struck.

Or if he did, Duterte must have suspected Aballe was driven by ill intent, allowing herself to be used by communist rebels.

Aballe raised the request of evacuees who lost, or were compelled to leave, their homes at Sitio Sindulan, where the massive landslide killed 72 people, injured 18 and buried 11 others (missing and presumed dead).

Duterte, in his Naga visit last Sept. 21, told Aballe he believed what she said, including her point that the sitio folk had gone through many typhoons but no disaster struck them until quarry operations began.

Nails, training

Instead of answering the woman’s request though, President Duterte:

[] Noted Aballe’s fingernails, saying, “I guess you were at the beauty parlor when the landslide happened” adding when she left the stage, “Maayong pagka-training ni sa kuan...”

[] Suggested that NPA rebels were inciting people in the sitio to protest, asking if there were NPAs in the area and ranting against CPP, the communist party.

To be sure, the answer didn’t meet Eballe’s question, far from that.

Instead, he was being skeptical, leading to the rant against the NPA rebels who, he must have suspected, had sent Aballe to the forum.

She must exist

Was Eballe for real? Abella, 36, was described as wearing a white blouse when she spoke to the President. She must exist. It was only her motive in speaking to power that Duterte doubted.

Her stepfather, one Emilio Librea, and an unnamed neighbor worried they hadn’t seen or heard from her anymore. Librea said he last talked with his stepdaughter after she appeared on TV following her encounter with Duterte. Cebu Daily News quoted an UCA News report that Aballe sought the help of Pusyon Kinaiyahan, an environmental group, purportedly fearing for her safety.

Alleged vanishing

Worrying over Eballe may be unfounded. She might just turn up any time at the city evacuation center or in Sitio Greyrocks also in Tina-an, said to be her place of residence.

Her showing up and being heard from again will be be good for her friends and relatives and for the administration, now suspected of the same crime the Marcos regime allegedly engaged in: involuntary disappearance of critics.

If, however, Aballe’s vanishing, whatever the cause, would continue,still in her wake is the unresolved question whether Duterte was right in suspecting the woman was an activist tapped by the President’s enemies.

Usual suspects

Aballe might even help settle the continuing debate over contributory causes to the landslide: negligence or ineptness of the Mines Geosciences Bureau, politics of the City of Naga mayor, or mining operations of Apo Land and Quarry Corp.

Police and military could help locate Sheila Aballe. Regarding “desaparecidos,” whatever the era, the state’s armed groups are the usual suspects.

“Stop the Apo Cement quarry. That’s what I’m asking. We don’t need food. What we need is for the quarry to stop because I believe if the people would just work, we’d still manage to eat.”--The woman who faced President and aired her complaint during his visit to the City of Naga last Sept. 21