Mother not seen since Manila business meeting

By Annemarie Evans

[From the South China Morning Post Carole Day, a widow, believed in the innate goodness and the warm hospitality of Filipinos.]

A Hong Kong mother of two has been missing for 11 days after flying to the Philippines on September 10.

Carole Day, a long-time HK resident, has been missing in the Philippines for 10 days. Credit: Courtesy of Jai Day

Carole Day, the widow of District Court Judge Richard Day, was last seen by her Philippine business partner, Tschai Ma, on September 12 in Manila’s Makati business district. She had planned to continue on to Cebu and also to fly briefly to Thailand before returning to Manila to fly back to Hong Kong. The Hong Kong-Manila flights were booked ahead, with the return set for September 15.

Day’s older son, Jai Day, 24, does not know in what order his mother planned to visit Cebu and Thailand. “But I’ve been told by immigration here that she never left the Philippines,” he said.

What has deeply concerned relatives and friends is that Day was due to return on September 15 to attend a close friend’s funeral. “She just wouldn’t have missed that,” close friend and business associate Mina Mahtani said. “I’ve known Carole for 18 years. She’s very reliable and would do anything for a friend. But Carole is too honest, that’s the problem, she trusts people too much.”

Mahtani, who has a boutique in Hollywood Road called Maya where Day sometimes works with her, said Day was also due to host a friend from Britain a few days later. “She was also going to a wedding in England and she’d been preparing for that for the past six months.”

Jai Day, an actor based in Los Angeles, flew to Manila on Wednesday to try to find his mother. By yesterday, he said, he had checked with the two main airlines that fly to Cebu and she was not on the manifest of either.

Carole Day has lived in Hong Kong for 22 years and was sourcing decorative items for a local hotel through her company, Ginger Lily, on the trip. The last confirmed sighting of the 56-year-old businesswoman was her meeting on September 12 with Ma at the LRI Design Plaza.

“I last saw her at 9.15am or 9.30am [on Sunday, September 12], Ma said. “She stayed in the showroom to do some pricing [on items she was selling there]. I left her to go to the factory in Pampanga, about two hours’ drive away.” Day had ordered a metal ornamental branch with leaves for the hotel, and he was visiting the factory to get the item made in time for Day to take it back to Hong Kong.

Day, a former long-distance runner and model, had already checked out of her hotel, The Corporate Inn, when Ma saw her on September 12. “We had meetings on [September] 10, 11 and 12. She always travelled light. She had a big handbag, but I don’t know whether she was carrying everything in there.”

Before returning to Hong Kong, Day was due to pick up some cushions in Cebu. She was planning to fly to Thailand to shut down a showroom that had experienced problems in the economic downturn. “She was positive, she said it was a fresh start,” Ma said. “She was fit, she was happy.”

Ma and friends have checked all Manila hospitals and a friend was asking at Cebu hospitals yesterday.

Jai Day has spoken to the Philippine and Hong Kong police, the British missions in Hong Kong and Manila as well as the Philippine consulate in Hong Kong.

Mahtani said: “The Philippine vice-consul gave us a personal interview. She was very friendly and helpful. After all those murders in Manila [of eight Hongkongers by a former police officer in the August 23 bus hijacking], the consulate have made it very clear to the Philippine police that this is a Hong Kong resident and it should be given top priority.”

Jai Day has set up a Facebook page: Missing: Carole Day. His e-mail address is jaicool@hotmail.com