The Philippine Online Chronicles

A woman from New Zealand who claimed to have been held captive and raped repeatedly during her stay in the Philippines said on Friday that she asked for help from Philippine authorities but was ignored.

Mary Elizabeth Jones, 39, told the Philippine Daily Inquirer in a phone interview from New Zealand, “I told [the Philippine National Police (PNP] everything and gave them all the evidence I've got. But nothing happened.”

Jones started to break down during the interview after learning that she was talking to someone from the Philippines. She said the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) is already investigating the case.

Jones' story surfaced on Sept. 20 after the New Zealand Herald (NZ Herald) posted a report on the alleged abduction on their website.

According to the NZ Herald, Jones, who is a martial arts enthusiast, went to the Philippines in October last year after being invited to join a training program in the country through social networking site Facebook. Jones told the Herald that upon her arrival at the airport in Iloilo City, she was kidnapped, her belongings were dumped, and she was held captive in a dirty room for more than five months, where she was forced to have sex with up to nine men.

Later, Jones says, she was dumped on the streets of Manila, starved and too weak to stand.

Iloilo City Police senior superintendent Marietto Valerio said they did not receive any report about the incident, and claimed that there were discrepancies in her account.

Valerio said that according to the records of the Bureau of Immigration, Jones arrived in the Philippines on Feb. 3 and left the country on April 12, which contradicts Jones's claim that she entered the country in October last year.

Valerio claimed Jones checked in with a male companion, Mark David Dudoit, at a pension house in Iloilo on Feb. 4. The police were told by the pension house staff that Jones became distraught on Feb. 5 when Dudoit left, allegedly taking her money with him. Dudoit came back to the pension house in the afternoon and the two left the place on the morning of Feb. 6.

Valerio said the police did not receive any report about the couple after they left the pension house.

A different story

NZ Herald released a separate report, narrating a different version of the story.

The report alleges that Dudoit “was forced to take Jones to the mental hospital after she started acting strangely when he refused her marriage proposal.”

“Maybe her friend was turned off with her because of her age and heft and refused her proposal to marry him,” NZ Herald quoted Valerio as saying.

Jones, on the other hand, has stood by her story. “No one else has the right to tell me what did or did not happen,” she said.

Jones admitted that there might have been confusion over exact dates and places due to the trauma that she experienced.

Privacy

The NZ Herald said that Jones returned to New Zealand with the help of the US Embassy, after staying at the Haven National Center for Women, a shelter run by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) for victims of human trafficking and sexual abuse.

Bettina Malone, information officer of the US Embassy, confirmed that the embassy helped Jones but refused to divulge details of the case for privacy reasons.

Meanwhile, Iloilo City mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog demanded an apology from Jones, saying that her claims have tarnished the image of the city.

“This is so unfair. We all know that this has never happened before in our peaceful city,” said Mabilog in a phone interview with the Inquirer.