Seven Chinese nationals were kidnapped in separate incidents last month while on a tour outside Metro Manila.
This was revealed by anticrime crusader Teresita Ang-See, citing the most recent kidnapping case of four Chinese nationals allegedly snatched by uniformed policemen last
July 27.
A Filipino-Chinese businessman, who declined to be named, claimed that this rash of kidnappings had prompted China to issue a black travel advisory on the Philippines which could dry up the influx of Mainland tourists in the country.
Ang-See, however, claimed that the Chinese Embassy denied issuing any travel advisory against the Philippines and that it has no knowledge of the abduction of its citizens visiting the Philippines.
P2.5-million ransom
Ang-See said the latest of these kidnapping cases involved four Chinese nationals who were visiting a relative based in Cavite last July 27.
Ang-See said that several men claiming to be policemen took them into custody and released them only after paying a P2.5-million ransom. Ang-See said they were held captive for at least 24 hours.
“I talked to PNP General [Nicanor] Bartolome about this incident and I asked him, if the police were out to arrest only the one based here, why take all the relatives? Until now I could not get a clear explanation,” said Ang-See.
‘Exaggerating’
Ang-See said that there were three other separate kidnapping cases of Chinese nationals in Cavite in recent weeks which she immediately raised with the PNP and DILG.
She claimed that she was immediately rebuffed for making a mountain out of a molehill. “They told me I was exaggerating these reports of kidnappings. I was frustrated because that was their initial reaction,” said Ang-See.
She said that the authorities felt that she was just trying to make the country look bad because of the current tension between the Philippines and China over resources-rich islands straddling their sea borders.
“Why would I do that (make false reports of kidnappings)? Who will benefit from bloating the figures?” asked Ang-See.
Ang-See’s Movement for the Restoration of Peace and Order (MRPO) claimed that there were 11 kidnapping cases in the first half this year, not including the Burmese child who was abducted in Laguna and rescued in Rizal province by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI).
The PNP’s Anti-Kidnapping Group insisted there were only seven cases of kidnapping with the rest merely abduction cases.
Ang-See has bemoaned the government’s decision to pull the plug on the Police Anti-Crime and Emergency Response (Pacer) which served as the main conduit between the private and public sector in solving heinous crimes since 2003.
This spate of kidnappings came nearly two years after the fledgling Aquino administration was rocked with its first major crisis when former Senior Inspector Rolando D. Mendoza took hostage a tourist bus with 21 Hong Kong nationals and four Filipino tourist service staff at the Rizal grandstand.
The 11-hour standoff ended in a bloodbath with 8 Hong Kong nationals dead and the Philippines’ reputation deeply gashed by the incident.
4th largest tourist arrivals
The Hong Kong government has issued a black alert on the country since the botched rescue attempt plotted by heads of the Philippine National Police and Department of Interior and Local Government cost the lives of its citizens.
China is currently the fourth largest group of tourists coming into the country behind South Korea, the United States and Japan. China has helped fuel the 11.7-percent growth in tourist arrivals to 2.14 million visitors in the first half this year from 1.92 million last year.
More importantly, China is the fastest rising sector in the country’s tourism industry with a 42.99-percent growth to 150,749 in the first half this year.
All major markets registered a positive growth, with South Korea, USA, Japan, China and Taiwan maintaining their ranks as the country’s top sources of tourists, noted Tourism Secretary Ramon Jimenez Jr.