Philippines Missing Person Investigations
A missing person is demarcated as someone who has disappeared or hiding, whose status as alive or dead cannot be confirmed, whose location or whereabouts are not known or are indistinct.
Worldwide thousands disappear every year. The Philippines has a staggering figure of 35,000 people who go missing each year. Which equates to one person disappearing every 15 minutes or a rate of 1.7 people per 1,000 Filipinos. Little wonder then that missing person investigation is a big business in the Philippines
Detective agencies in the Philippines vis-à-vis the Police?
Police searches are led by very a narrow definition of the term “missing persons.” They also do not take up the case immediately. By the time they work on it, it might be too late. As they need to have hundreds of other cases to handle as per their perceived level of importance. They are also limited in their efficiency by insufficient resources. Often, if a result is not achieved over a period, they stop the missing person investigation resulting in cold case filing. So for missing person investigations professional private detective services firms can help with quick results where the police may stumble.
How do investigate agencies locate people missing?
Detective agencies in the Philippines, such as OSI, are licensed to search for and locate missing people
- They use different investigative methods
- Established standard operating procedures (SOPs)
- Specialized Training expertise
- Types of Missing Persons
- Runaway Children
- Possible or actual victims of abduction or violent crimes
- People with physical or mental disabilities who have disappeared, and more.
- A disturbed mental health, threatened relationships with family or friends, financial troubles, trouble with the law
- abduction for forced prostitution,
- Runaway murderers
- Alzheimer’s disease
- Accident away from home.
Techniques and methodologies used to find missing people
- Background checks in the Philippines to isolate likely suspects and sources of aid
- Questioning witnesses, using other investigative techniques to develop leads
- Tracing credit/debit card purchases
- Social media tracking
- Searching numerous and varied govt. agencies for leads as to their whereabouts.
- Searching hospitals, mortuaries, etc. where a victim may land up
- Networking with peer investigation firms
- Engaging informants if need be
- Surveillance /videotaping at likely places where a missing individual could visit
A right detective agency in the Philippines will find the missing person asked to be located in around thirty days, except in exceptional cases. Private investigators in the Philippines and elsewhere work with an unsaid heroism – to let the truth prevail. What a private investigation finds out can be used in court cases. While missing person investigators can and do partner with local and federal law enforcers (in fact, some P.I.s are even former law officials), they are not police officers. They cannot police interrogations or arrest suspected culprits.
