Charles Teves
Actress-vlogger Camille Prats has told how she recovered her phone after it was stolen while attending the BLACKPINK concert at the Philippine Arena last Sunday.
She shared this through Instagram Stories posted on Tuesday. She recounted how she lost her phone just hours before the “Born Pink” concert began.
Prats was at the Philippine Arena at 5:42 p.m. on March 26 when she realized her mobile phone had been taken from her bag.
She also mentioned contacting her husband, VJ Yambao, an entrepreneur, to inform him about the incident. They then marked her phone as “lost” through her laptop and deleted all stored data.
“We have a tracker installed on my phone. The moment I called VJ, the phone was already in the parking lot area,” the actress said.
At 9:30 p.m., Prats departed from the Philippine Arena while her husband and stepson Ice returned to the venue. This is because they believed her phone could still be traced there.
She mentioned that her phone was locked, and all data was erased from her laptop.
“It was also turned off by the person holding it,” the actress said.
After more than five hours, they went to the nearest police station and informed the authorities of the phone’s location. This was the same house VJ Yambao had previously seen.
Prats explained that police officers accompanied them to the house where the phone was last tracked; got in touch with the homeowner’s association, and the village guards, and inquired at the two houses about her lost phone. She said they did not hint it was stolen to avoid sounding accusing but both residents denied seeing the phone.
At noon, Prats came back to the police station along with her husband and the officers. She requested access to CCTV footage of the village gate from 1:15 a.m. to 1:20 a.m.
“From the house where we went to, it can now be located near IBP road. We left to follow it, together with the police officers. We did not find it,” she said.
At 2 p.m., Prats’ phone was traced to Shopwise along Commonwealth Avenue. She and the police officers followed the signal, but she doubted their chances of finding the phone. Two hours later, they decided to stop tracking the phone and go home.
However, the phone’s location changed again while en route, and it ended up at Batasan Police Station, also known as Precinct 6. Her husband speculated that the phone might have been turned over to the police because its location remained static.
By 6 p.m., the actress received a call from her brother, who knew someone working at Precinct 6. This person confirmed that a delivery service sent the phone to the precinct.
Prats and her husband were in tears; this was their first time asking for help from the police and they did not know what to expect.
Prats reiterated, “Kindness always prevails.”
She concluded, “God knows our hearts and we really wanted to deal with this as peacefully as we can. No harsh words, no accusations. Never-ending pakiusap lang talaga…the amazing power of prayers.”
Camille Prats recommended that iPhone users turn on the Find My iPhone feature, which she found very useful in tracking down her phone.
