Slain Coke executive: If I get kidnapped, never pay ransom

The local ethnic Chinese community is up in arms as members prepare to bury a young woman abducted and killed in a botched kidnapping attempt last week.

Betti Chua Sy, commercial finance director of Coca-Cola Export Corp., was found dead by a roadside in Parañaque City on Tuesday, her bullet-torn corpse wrapped in a white shroud and stuffed in a black trash bag.

The viciousness of her abduction and killing — police suspect the 32-year-old bled to death before her captors telephoned her family to demand a P10-million ransom — has shocked the business community.

Chinese-Filipino leaders plan to turn her funeral today into a mammoth street protest. In fliers distributed at her wake, they urged citizens to "show our anger against the rampage of kidnapping that is terrorizing our lives."

The last time the small and tightly-knit Chinese-Filipino community took to the streets in anger was in January 1993, when they buried 15-year-old Charlene May Sy, a kidnapped schoolgirl who was shot dead in a bungled police rescue attempt.

"We haven’t seen it this bad for 10 years," said Teresita Ang-See, an outspoken Chinese community leader and spokeswoman for the Citizens Action Against Crime.

Before she was abducted, Sy told her parents Maria and George that "if I ever get kidnapped, never pay ransom because I will not let them get me alive."

Sy’s funeral cortege will begin its march today at 1 p.m. from Funeraria Paz on Araneta Avenue in Quezon City to the Ever Memorial Park, where her remains will be interred.

‘Good daughter, student, worker’

Sy, her mother Maria Chua Sy said, "was the most ideal daughter, always caring, obedient and she even once said that she’d never marry because she wanted to spend the rest of her life taking care of us. Her dream was to go for further studies in a top university in the United States, perhaps a Ph.D."

Sy also dreamt of "someday becoming an expat top executive in a multinational firm abroad," her mother said. "Once she was lamenting the deteriorating peace and order conditions of our society and she wanted our whole family to migrate overseas for peace of mind."

The eldest of six siblings and the only daughter of a middle-class family, Sy had consistently been an honor student of the Grace Christian High School and, later, the University of the Philippines., where she graduated summa cum laude from her business administration course. She was also conferred the Best Business Administration Student award.

Sy was a member of the Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society and a lifetime member of the Pi Gamma Mu International Honor Society.

The hardworking Sy worked by day and studied by night, finishing her master’s degree in business administration at UP and graduating at the top of her class and receiving the Most Outstanding MBA Graduate award.

He uncle, businessman Ramon Syhunliong said, "my niece is very hardworking and helpful. She would always help me out with accounting and financial matters in my business. Betti was a very good person, her senseless and violent death was a grave injustice."

Her parents’ grief is beyond measure, Maria said. "Why did this tragedy have to happen to our daughter, who was such a kind-hearted, hardworking and loving daughter?"

Phenomenal success

Sy’s killing also highlights the phenomenal economic success of the descendants of immigrants from China, the prey of choice of more than a dozen known kidnap gangs.

Ethnic Chinese hold many of the economic levers of power. They own the country’s biggest shopping malls, most of its biggest banks and many of its biggest manufacturing companies.

Two generations ago, "you would see Chinese selling bean curd on the street. Now they are the ones buying," said Edgardo Diansuy of the Commission on Human Rights.

Diansuy, who said his father has Chinese blood, told Agence France Presse there was a public perception that "the Chinese have a submissive tendency and tended not to report kidnappings to the police."

Community leaders say this was because they feared rogue cops were in league with the gangs. As a safety precaution, some families send children to school abroad or buy guns. Others have left the country.

Many victims have banded together into groups to provide advice, moral support, and at times even help deliver ransoms, according to See. She said she served as a clearing house linking support groups and police with the families of new victims.

See said that "in most instances, even if they (victims’ relatives) get the cooperation of the police, they’re allowed to pay ransom. Up to this point, I don’t think we have the capability to effect safe rescues."

Another ethnic Chinese source told AFP that in the past some gangs did not even bother to actually kidnap their targets.

They simply telephoned the potential victims, read back to them their prepared schedule for the day and the routes and vehicles they would be taking, and gave the terrified targets a bank account number where a ransom would have to be deposited.

Senate President Franklin Drilon said there have been 156 kidnappings this year and P176.7 million paid in ransom. Six out of 10 abductions occurred in Manila.

"This is an astounding and frightening record," he said. "This type of criminality strikes at the heart of our economy, discouraging investments and business expansion."

Diansuy said there was also a danger the rising frequency of abductions would lead to public apathy.

President Arroyo’s response to the latest abduction was swift and blunt. Four of the alleged kidnappers, including the gang leader were killed and eight others arrested in a series of police raids.

"Let us show these criminals that the law never sleeps, and they cannot escape it," she said.

Cry for blood

Sy’s parents said they want the death penalty moratorium lifted so kidnappers, drug traffickers and others convicted for heinous crimes will be put to death by lethal injection.

However, while the President said she appreciates "the clamor for the lifting the moratorium on the death penalty... I believe more in the forceful and uncompromising implementation of criminal justice under our Christian values. The best way to deter crime is effective prevention, quick resolution and swift justice. We are working on a holistic approach that will depend on institutional effectiveness rather than terminal retribution."

Despite this refusal to lift the execution ban, the President said the government will "continue to reassess our options in consultation with the leaders of Congress and I will take my cue from them."

She assured the public that the government has "accounted for the top kidnap gag in the country and we are going down on the five remaining most notorious syndicates."

She said the National Anti-Kidnapping Task Force (NAKTAF) led by anti-kidnapping czar Angelo Reyes "will be fully committed and relentless in its efforts to contain this threat."

The President also commended the "gallantry and resolve of the police team that fought it out with the heavily-armed kidnap gang in Bataan, especially the police officer who perished in the firefight, because he exemplifies the tenacity with which we must fight this menace."

"I am ordering the authorities to give no quarter to armed kidnap suspects that resist arrest and I would like to seek the full cooperation of the public in this campaign," the President said. — With AFP