P1.25 million paid for Tai twins

The family of kidnap victim 17-year-old Welvin Tai paid P1.25 million in ransom and an undetermined amount of jewelry, sources close to the family told The STAR yesterday.

Agents of the crack Police Anti-Crime Emergency Response (PACER) have refused to give details on the progress on the case. They said the victim’s family has refused to cooperate.

But sources close to the family, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said ransom negotiations were held shortly after the abduction at the Coastal Road in Parañaque City Thursday morning.

On the kidnappers’ instructions, a representative of the victim’s family proceeded to a subdivision in Valenzuela City with the ransom.

A man arrived at the rendezvous point aboard a tricycle, collected the ransom and sped off to a dimly lit squatter colony in the vicinity.

After confirming the receipt of the ransom, the kidnappers then gave the victim’s family instructions on where Welvin was going to be released, which later would explain why the family was at the Pasay City police headquarters Friday night.

Senior Superintendent Oscar Catalan said Welvin was released in front of the Manila Film Center in Pasay City and was reunited with his family that evening.

Welvin and his twin brother Ason were abducted on Thursday morning in Parañaque while on their way to school, according to police.

Three unidentified armed men aboard a car blocked their van, took the two boys and their driver. Ason, however, managed to escape at the height of the kidnapping. The driver, Cerilo Co, was freed in Lemery, Batangas.

The Tai kidnapping was a setback to the Arroyo administration’s crackdown on the kidnap-for-ransom spree, which President Arroyo said has scared off investors and blackened the country’s image.

Philippine National Police chief Director General Hermogenes Ebdane yesterday said one of the factors contributing to the kidnapping spree is a police shortage of guns.

Thousands of police officers are carrying out their work unarmed because of a funding shortfall, he said.

"I don’t know the exact number but based on our data last year, we have a shortfall on firearms of almost 30 percent. We are talking here of sidearms and long arms," Ebdane told reporters.

He said the government has released P546 million to remedy the situation.

Despite that, police are "on track" to meet Mrs. Arroyo’s one-year deadline to substantially curb the kidnapping problem, he said. – With Katherine Adraneda, AFP