‘RP is still Asia’s kidnap hotspot’

Weak rule of law, rampant corruption and ineffective law enforcement continue to make the Philippines Asia’s kidnapping hotspot, a report by a leading risk consultancy group said Thursday.

The government had failed to address "these factors with any consistency or political will" and as a result kidnapping was likely to flourish in this Southeast Asian nation of 84 million people, said the report by Pacific Strategies and Assessments (PSA).

A total of 44 kidnappings were reported to police and government agencies last year, a 50 percent increase over 2004, but the vast majority still go unreported, the Asian-based consultancy group said in its annual report on kidnapping in the Philippines.

But the Philippine National Police (PNP), for its part, maintained yesterday that kidnapping incidents were at "a manageable level."

PNP spokesman Senior Superintendent Samuel Pagdilao said PSA made its assessment of seemingly ineffective law enforcement without factoring in the refusal of kidnap victims to cooperate with police in going after kidnappers.

"We are doing our best to keep this particular (crime) within manageable levels. So compared to past years, we made some headway," Pagdilao said. "They did not consider the difficulty on the part of the victim to come out in the open and assist in solving kidnapping."

The number of actual kidnappings in the Philippines in 2005 was estimated to be three times the official figure and security analysts estimated that cases occur about every three days somewhere in the country, PSA said. — AFP, Cecille Suerte Felipe