Cops fail to find missing Peace Corps volunteer

LA TRINIDAD, Benguet - Authorities searching for the missing US Peace Corps volunteer Julia Campbell have made no breakthrough in their two-day operation, a police spokesman said Sunday. Campbell, 40, was last seen on April 8 in the town of Banaue in Ifugao province, where she had planned to hike alone, said US Embassy spokesman Matthew Lussenhop. Supt. Joseph Adnol, Cordillera police spokesman, said teams created to search for Campbell had not reported any development in their search and rescue operations for the missing humanitarian worker. Meanwhile, Campbell’s family had thanked the Peace Corps for their immediate response to her disappearance and their continued search and rescue efforts in Banaue where she was last seen. “We are grateful to the US Embassy in the Philippines and especially the [Filipino] people who are doing all they can to locate her," US Embassy spokesman Matthew Lussenhop quoted the Campbells as saying. Lussenhop said the Peace Corps started looking for Campbell after she missed appointments on April 11. "The Filipino authorities have been working very hard, using helicopters and local guides for a very extensive search," Lussenhop said. Security officers from the embassy and Peace Corps also were in the area to help, he said. Regional police commander Chief Superintendent Raul Gonzales said at least four teams from the provincial police office had been mobilized for the search, after the US Embassy told them Campbell was missing. He said the directive to conduct the search came from the national police headquarters in Manila. Maj. Gen. Rodrigo Maclang said members of an Army company in Banaue also joined the search Saturday, after receiving an order from the military's Northern Luzon Command. "We were unaware of the incident. We learned only today that someone has been missing," he said. Maclang, commander of the 5th Infantry Division based in Isabela, east of Ifugao, said informants have told the military that Campbell had also traveled to the mountain tourist town of Sagada in nearby Mountain Province. She was seen arriving on April 8 by motorcycle taxi at a Banaue road junction leading to nearby Batad village, from where she had planned to hike to a spot to view the rice terraces, he said. Campbell also contacted a local masseuse to meet her at the Village Inn in Batad, but did not show up for her 6:30 p.m. Sunday appointment, Maclang said. He said she also had a bus reservation to go back to Manila on April 9 because she had to catch a flight the next day. He did not know where she was headed from the Philippine capital. He said there is only a small military presence in area because "it is not a major concern now with regard to the insurgency." As early as Thursday, local police started checking hotel and inn guest lists for Campbell's name, receptionist Lea Ananayo at the Halfway Lodge in Banaue said by telephone. Authorities also left Campbell's photos to be displayed in hotel lobbies, shops and market stalls in the town. Campbell, of Fairfax, Virginia, has been teaching college in Albay province's Legazpi city, southeast of Manila, since March 2005. The embassy appealed to the public for any information on the welfare and whereabouts of Campbell, described as 1.7 meters (5 feet 7 inches) tall, with blonde hair and glasses. It offered a reward, but did not specify an amount. Campbell, who worked as a journalist in New York, contributed a story to the CNN about the death and destruction in the wake of supertyphoon Durian, which hit Legazpi City in late November. Writing in her Internet blog, she said she "decided to step out of the rat race of New York" to join the Peace Corps when she was 38. In an entry on May 27, 2005, two months after her arrival in the Philippines, she expressed anticipation about no longer having "the comfort of fellow Americans within reach." "I will be left to my own devices in a strange place with people and a culture I barely know. Though it is both terrifying and exciting, I look forward to finally starting what I came here to do: to immerse myself in a foreign culture, speak the language and try to do some good in the world," she wrote. "Let the games begin." Campbell is one of 137 Peace Corps volunteers currently in the Philippines. More than 8,000 Peace Corps volunteers have served in the Philippines since 1961, making it the corps' second-oldest program in the world, the embassy said. In 1990, the NPA seized Peace Corps volunteer Timothy Swanson and held him for 50 days on central Negros island. He was released unharmed to the Red Cross after the late Roman Catholic Bishop Antonio Fortich helped negotiate with his captors. In June that year, the US government ordered the evacuation of Peace Corps workers from the Philippines after receiving intelligence that rebels may try to kill or kidnap them. But by that time, Swanson already was in rebel hands. GMANews.TV with a report from AP