To add insult to injury, the suspected thief even accused the driver of stealing P10,000 from her bag, after she was brought to the police.
The cabdriver was identified on Friday on records of the Baguio City Police Office (BCPO) as Angelito Bautista Penullar, 39, married, a resident of 143 Guisad Surong.
His passenger, on the other hand, was named by the police as Irene Marcelo Protacio, 26, single, a businesswoman, who lives at 324 Lower Ferguson Road.
According to the driver, he just ferried his wife home and while driving along Guisad Road on his way back downtown around 11:30 a.m. of July 23, the businesswoman flagged down his vehicle and instructed him to bring her to Tiongsan Super Bazaar at the corner of Upper Magsaysay Avenue and Lower General Luna Road.
However, when they reached Roman Ayson (formerly Sepic) Road, his wife called him on his cellphone to inform him that she forgot her black pouch bag containing another cellphone and P1,500 cash in the back seat where his passenger was now seated.
Although he inquired from his passenger if she noticed his wife's black pouch bag, she denied seeing or getting it.
The driver said he even begged his passenger to return it, because she was the only one to get into the back seat of his driven vehicle after he brought his wife home, but she told him to stop the vehicle near the vicinity of the Insular Life Building along Chuntug Street.
After she got off his vehicle and flagged down another taxicab, the driver followed her and saw his wife's black pouch bag inside her blue shoulder bag when she got into the front seat of the other vehicle.
This prompted the driver to recover his wife's bag and bring the suspected thief to BCPO Station 7 to formally file a case against her.
But while inside the police station, the driver got the surprise of his life when his passenger turned the situation around and accused him of stealing P10,000 cash she allegedly discovered to be missing from her blue shoulder bag.
After both filed charges against the other, the woman was released instead, after she signed a promise-to-appear note on the instructions of an undisclosed inquest prosecutor.
