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Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Missing diver’s wife suspects foul play in disappearance
What really happened to Uldarico Monte, the dive instructor who was reported lost at sea off Guinatarcan Island in Sta. Fe town, Cebu and who is now presumed dead?
Florisa Ebron-Pullan, Monte’s common-law-wife, suspects foul play and has asked for the help of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) 7.
The bureau, in turn, is summoning the three men who last saw Uldarico alive—Henry Rivera, Garner Cataluña and Capestrano Carillo. They reportedly went diving together when the incident took place.
According to earlier reports, Monte and his companions rode the boat towards the island, located off the coast of Daanbantayan town, and dived for a sunken World War II ship they thought had a cargo of treasures.
Based on Coast Guard findings, the divers went underwater about 10:30 a.m. of May 8 and, minutes after reaching the seabed 80 meters deep, Monte allegedly signaled to his companions—Rivera and a certain Junior—that his oxygen tank no longer had air and that he needed help.
Each of them, according to the same report, had one reserve oxygen tank, but they failed to open its valve before they dived.
They tried to help Monte, the report said, but because they could not open the valve of Monte’s reserve tank, and they too had almost ran out of air, they decided to surface, leaving Monte below.
But Ebron-Pullan said this is all hogwash.
“I do not believe that Uldarico drowned because he is a professional deep-sea and scuba diving instructor and due to the fact that his body is still not found,” she said in an affidavit before the bureau.
“I firmly believe that whatever may have happened to him was due to foul play,” she said.
Pullan also gave the bureau a transcribed copy of a message sent to her via mobile phone by Uldarico before his supposed drowning. Investigators have kept the contents of the message confidential as of press time.
One Ricardo Soliano, a co-diver and friend of Uldarico, also executed an affidavit detailing a meeting that was held between Uldarico, Rivera and Cataluna last May 6.
“During the said meeting, which I personally witnessed, Garner was organizing a treasure-hunting expedition off Guinatarcan Island, Sta. Fe, Cebu, where a sunken ship was allegedly located and that the expedition was supposed to be a secret endeavor,” he said.
Soliano said Uldarico had proposed to the group that he be included but Garner refused, saying the financier wanted to limit the number of persons involved. He identified Capistrano as the bankroller.
He said the meeting ended about 11 p.m. and that he and Uldarico returned to latter’s house, where Uldarico intimated that this was to be his last dive.
“Uldarico further instructed me before we parted ways that if ever something wrong (should) happen to their expedition and if no message (is heard) from him by 5 p.m. of May 8, 2006, then a double-cross occurred during the trip and that I should immediately report the same to the authorities,” he added.
For her part, Pullan said Uldarico also wrote a note before he left for the dive but the copy is with SPO3 Eleazar Monte, Uldarico’s brother.
Pullan said Uldarico was fetched from their home in Barangay Maribago, Lapu-Lapu City around 12:15 p.m. of May 7.
She said he boarded a multicab that Capistrano drove and that this was the last time she saw Uldarico alive.
It took a certain Arlene Rivera and Arlene Dungon to inform her that something had happened to Uldarico during the dive and that he is missing at sea.
The following day, she said she went to the Mactan air base for help. A helicopter from the Air Force and two Navy divers were dispatched to conduct search and rescue.
When they arrived, Uldarico’s brother, Eleazar, was also at the dive site with three Coast Guard divers. No body was found. (KNR)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (May 16, 2006 issue)
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