Wife of kidnapped trader appeals to GMA for help

A Chinese woman appealed to President Arroyo yesterday for help in bringing back her husband who was kidnapped while on his way to work in April last year.

Meanwhile, Puwersa ng Masa senatorial candidate Panfilo "Ping" Lacson accused Senior Superintendent Reynaldo Berroya yesterday of taking part in a smear campaign against him.

Lacson said Berroya is the "handler" of Mary Ong, alias "Rosebud," the former Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force informant who had accused the former Philippine National Police (PNP) and PAOCTF chief of involvement in the kidnapping of Chinese businessmen.

"Col. Berroya has admitted being the handler of Mary Ong," he said in an official statement. "It appears that he is using Mary Ong to attack me, especially during the campaign."

Lacson also said PNP chief Director General Leandro Mendoza, "instead of getting involved in partisan politics," should focus on the fight against the rising cases of kidnapping in the country.

Speaking in Fookienese, Jenny Ong Lim told The STAR yesterday her husband, Lin Jun Ziang, was snatched by armed men in front of their house along Benavidez Street in Binondo, Manila as he was leaving for his office in Valenzuela City.

"I want to know if he is still alive or if he is dead," she said. "The anguish I have been experiencing is already unbearable."

During Lim’s interview in a safehouse somewhere in Chinatown, Mary Ong acted as her interpreter from Fookienese to English.

Ong filed at the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) yesterday the seventh kidnapping case against Lacson and his former men at PAOCTF led by Senior Superintendent Michael Ray Aquino.

Lim told The STAR she decided to come out and tell her story after she saw Ong on nationwide television revealing police involvement in kidnapping activities when Lacson was PNP chief.

"I know I am not the only victim of kidnapping in the area," she said. "Other Chinese families are just afraid to come out because they do not have trust in the police."

Lim said she and her husband decided to settle in the country seven years ago to set up a business, and that all their children, except for the eldest, were all born in the Philippines.

Lim said her husband called her up by cell phone at around 3 p.m. on the day he was kidnapped and that a Chinese translator, whom she identified as Angelito Sy, had demanded P3 million in ransom for her husband’s freedom.

"It was during the same phone conversation that I learned that my husband was in Lacson’s custody," she said. "My husband told me to just raise the money as Lacson would release him afterwards."

However, Ong said Sy was being used by the PNP Narcotics Command as a translator and that Sy learned that Aquino would allegedly be receiving a delivery of drugs.

Ong said Sy, 37, who was president of World Balance Philippines, was kidnapped by PAOCTF agents on May 12 last year.

Ong said on the day Sy disappeared, he received several phone calls from Chief Inspector Cesar Tomongan of the PAOCTF, who asked that they meet at SM North EDSA at 3:30 p.m. the next day.

Sy’s case is now being handled by the NBI’s Special Action Unit under lawyer Edmund Arugay and the other cases are being investigated by the Anti-Organized Crime Division, she added.

Lim said her family was able to raise a total of P4.7 million for the ransom through "donations" from relatives and business associates in China.

Lim said last May 12 Sy instructed her to leave the money inside a car which was parked at the grounds of SM North EDSA in Quezon City.

The kidnappers told her that her husband would be freed three days after they received the money, she added.

Lim said she parked the car at the SM North EDSA grounds and left the engine running as instructed, for fear that her husband would be killed if she informed the police.

Later that evening, she received a call from her husband to confirm that the kidnappers had received the money, and that was the last time she talked with him, she added.

Lim said she and her family tried to seek the help of Lacson and they went to the PAOCTF headquarters in Camp Crame, Quezon City, but to no avail.

"I pity myself and other Chinese in this country who are left neglected by the Federation of Chinese Businessmen," she said. "I hope my coming out will help other victims to reveal their ordeal to the present government."