Arnold Matubis said he recognized the backpack and some of the apparatus his brother used as draftsman and surveyor of Castro & Associates, which employeed Alex Matubis for the past 22 years.
“I also found the wedding ring with the inscription of the name of my brother’s wife,” Arnold Matubis told Variety.
In the same area, they found the driver’s license, calculator and other personal belongings of Alex Matubis, 47.
Arnold Matubis said he talked with his brother’s wife, Malou Matubis, yesterday.
She came to Saipan in September but left in November after she failed to find her husband.
Arnold Matubis said he was advised by the Department of Public Safety that the remains will undergo forensic examination.
The remains can be transported to the Philippines once police complete their investigation.
Arnold Matubis is asking Candido Castro, his employer’s brother, for help.
Arnold Matubis is also hoping that the Filipino community will help the family of his brother.
Earlier, Irene N. Tantiado, then-president of the United Workers Movement, NMI, disclosed that Mrs. Matubis found documents in her husband’s room indicating that his employer owed him at least $5,738.50 as of Jan. 3, 2008.
Dental records
In a separate interview, Department of Public Safety Commissioner Santiago F. Tudela said they were trying to obtain the dental records of Alex Matubis “to have these checked if they match the remains of the recovered remains.”
Tudela added, “We cannot say if the remains belonged to [Alex] Matubis, and there’s no way we can identify him because all we recovered are skeletal remains.”
He said the clothes found on the remains were the same as those that Matubis wore when he was last seen on July 29, 2008.
Tudela said the remains were recovered far from the spot where Matubis’s blue Toyota pickup truck was found near Kalabera Cave on Aug. 19 last year.
Investigators said the truck’s hood was still hot when they found the vehicle.
“Police combed the perimeter where Matubis’s vehicle was recovered but if the body belonged to Matubis, they wouldn’t have found him because of the distance,” Tudela said.
He added that it may take some time before they can positively identify the remains.
According to police, two farmers found a pair of boots and a backpack in a jungle area near a farm lot in Marpi at about 11 a.m. on Jan. 24.
Near the boots and the backpack were the skeletal remains of a human.
Mrs. Matubis, in an earlier interview, said her husband went back to Saipan on June 28, 2008 after a 45-day vacation in the Philippines.
She added that her husband sent her a large amount of money on July 29.
On July 31, 2008, she said his employer informed her that Matubis was missing.
