{"id":443335,"date":"2026-02-01T19:12:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T19:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/443335\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T19:12:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T19:12:09","slug":"maryland-woman-trapped-in-the-philippines-is-back-in-the-u-s-sen-van-hollen-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/443335\/","title":{"rendered":"Maryland woman trapped in the Philippines is back in the U.S., Sen. Van Hollen says"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Maryland woman who was trapped in the Philippines<\/a> is now back in the United States with her family, according to Senator Chris Van Hollen. <\/p>\n

Friends of 24-year-old Chantal Anicoche said she was in the Philippines doing humanitarian work when she was taken into military custody.<\/p>\n

A community event at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) raised awareness for Anicoche in January. Organizers said she was being held by the Filipino government.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Van Hollen said he spoke to Anicoche and that he’s grateful for the efforts made to support her return.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

The woman and her family are requesting privacy at this time. \u00a0<\/p>\n

“I was devastated”<\/p>\n

Anicoche’s friends previously described her as the life of the party. They said she was very passionate, particularly about humanitarian issues in the Philippines.<\/p>\n

They said she was in Mindoro, a rural island with a large indigenous population, when the Armed Forces of the Philippines dropped bombs and opened fire on New Year’s Day.<\/p>\n

Rika Ramos, a friend of Anicoche, previously said she was very worried for her.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“When I first heard the news that she was missing, I was devastated. I was crying,” Ramos said.<\/p>\n

\"anicoche.png<\/p>\n

Anicoche’s friends describe her as the life of the party and very passionate, particularly about humanitarian issues in the Philippines.<\/p>\n

Photo by Philippine Army<\/p>\n

Anicoche seen in a hole in the Philippines<\/p>\n

In a social media video posted by the country’s military on Jan. 8, Anicoche was seen\u00a0emerging from a hole<\/a>. The Filipino government said she was there for eight days after the attack.<\/p>\n

“The military was pressured, we believed into surfacing her, and they posted a video online that many human rights advocates, humanitarians, believe is possibly staged,” said Gordon Mutch, a member of the Baltimore Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines at the time.<\/p>\n

“I was actually glad that she was alive, but it was hard to see her in those conditions,” said Frances Quijano, who is a friend of Anicoche.<\/p>\n

\"anicoche1.png<\/p>\n

In a social media video posted by the country’s military, Anicoche was seen\u00a0emerging from a hole\u00a0where the Filipino government says she was for eight days after the attack. The video was shared Jan. 8.<\/p>\n

Photo by Philippine Army<\/p>\n

\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Maryland woman who was trapped in the Philippines is now back in the United States with her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":443336,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-443335","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-united-states-of-america","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/443336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}