Society

Family urges Philippines to catch kidnappers

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-03-05 15:59

MANILA: It was meant to be a joyful reunion but Lu Yanyan did not manage to see her father alive.

Three hours before her flight from China reached the southern Philippine city of Zamboanga, Lu's father -- 51-year-old Lu Zishun -- died of kidney failure in the city's hospital. It was barely three days after he was freed by militant captors from a remote jungle dent in southern Philippines.

"If it were not the bandits, my father would not have died. They killed him," Lu told Xinhua between sobs in the quiet funeral parlor of Arlington Crematory in Manila. "I never thought it would be like this. I did not even get a chance to talk to my father. Not a word."

Lu, who came here to fetch her father home, boarded the return flight on Friday with the ashes.

"The Philippine government must get those kidnappers and bring them to justice. Only that my father can rest in peace," the 27- year-old law school student said in tears.

The tragedy highlighted the Philippines' long-last security concerns in its volatile south. Since 1990s, various crime gangs, militant groups including the al Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf have been operating rather freely in this region, kidnapping foreigners, local businessmen and teachers alike to extort for ransom.

Lu Zishun was invited by family friends to co-start a plywood factory on Basilan island earlier last year. By then, at the height of global financial crisis, Lu had just lost his job in China and he grabbed every opportunity that could feed his sick wife and four children at home.

Fully-armed kidnappers stormed their plywood factory in Maluso town last November, taking away Lu, his colleagues Chen Bozhong and Filipino Mark Singson. Kidnappers called the family and the factory's Chinese co-owner to pay a large amount of ransom, and they chopped off the head of Singson to show that they meant it.

Lu Yanyan said kidnappers recorded the beheading and forced his father to watch it repeatedly before calling the family, a cause of his mental breakdown.

Basilan provincial commander Antonio Mendoza told Xinhua that initial debriefing show that Lu and Chen were detained in run-down houses in the mountains, fed with only rice and salt, and tortured with death threats.

He said Lu was "very weak" when the two were freed on February 26. He was transferred to Zamboanga overnight as the hospital in Basilan could not stabilize his health.

"Doctors told us that Lu could not relieve urine and was in severe pains," Mendoza said, adding that medical records show that Lu's other vital organs also failed when he died.

"The bandits were utterly crude, utterly inhumane," said Chen Songming, the family friend of Lu. "They knew Lu's health was failing and yet kept withholding him until the last minute."

Chen said fully-armed bandits, inpatient for ransom payment, once stormed his bakery store in Basilan and opened fire, trying to kill him and his son.

Eight Filipino-Chinese business groups in southern Philippines on Wednesday published a statement on local Mandarin-language newspapers, condemning the atrocity and urging enhanced protection of Chinese businessmen in the country.

In a petition letter obtained by Xinhua, the powerful Manila-based The Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FFCCCI) had urged Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to solve the security problems that brought anxiety to Filipino-Chinese in the south.

The FFCCCI warned that the economic activity in Basilan would be halted and no investor would dare to invest in the province if the kidnapping continues.

Blessed with abundant natural resources, Basilan is nevertheless among the poorest in the Philippines. A growing number of locals join the kidnap-for-ransom gangs as there is no other way of livelihood.

President Arroyo had pledged to end the region's plaguing insurgency problem before she steps down from the top office in June 2010 but most security observers said that target is almost certain to be missed.

While there is no quick solution to the kidnapping epidemic, security observers believe a firm resolve from the top office, full participation of local law enforcement, and a systematic and non-stop pursue of the crime gangs are a must.

It remains unknown if the justice Lu's family asks for will be served. But Lu Yanyan said it seemed that she had little power to make a difference.

"My father came to the Philippines only because he wanted life to become easier for his wife and children. Now he is gone and we demand an answer," she said.