Ifugao nurse rides trike at midnight; missing

By Juan P. Dait Jr.

LAGAWE, Ifugao - - A 33-years old staff nurse of the Ifugao Province Hospital here who has been missing since July 16 this year while enroute to the hospital has not yet been found and a province-wide search operation to find her has been launched by local authorities.

Supt. Joseph Adnol, Ifugao police chief, has formed a special task force to trace the whereabouts of nurse Michelle B. Buyog who disappeared at past midnight on July 16 while riding a tricycle along the Lagawe - Banawe National Highway going to the Ifugao Provincial Hospital three km from their house in Dullagan, Poblacion in this capital town.

The task force is headed by Adnol and the team is composed of police, hospital and health authorities, government and non-government employees and civilian volunteers.

The regional police intelligence office including Mountain Province police have been asked to join the search for the missing nurse, said Adnol’s office.

According to the nurse’s father, Emilio Bugatti, 56, Michelle was in her white nurse’s uniform when she boarded a tricycle along the highway across their house at past midnight of July 16 bound for the hospital.

Her daughter would have arrived at the hospital 20 minutes later, he said.

Ifugao Provincial Hospital authorities, however, said that Michelle never arrived at the IPH to report for duty.

Michelle, married with three children, the eldest of whom is a sixth-grade pupil at the Lagawe Central School, is a nursing graduate of the St. Mary’s University of Nueva Vizcaya and a Mass Communications graduate of the Centro Escolar University of Manila.

The missing nurse’s father, Bugatti, a restaurant owner, revealed that he even enlisted the assistance of some mumbaki (native priests) to reveal the fate or whereabouts of her daughter.

Bugatti said that the native priests he consulted were one in saying that his daughter was “still alive”.

However, not one of the active priests could say definitely where Michelle was hiding or staying or who could have snatched her.