Valenzuela: No truth to organ harvest rumors

MANILA, Philippines –  Valenzuela City authorities yesterday belied rumors about the city’s children being abducted and their bodies later turning up minus their internal organs.

Mayor Sherwin Gatchalian said his office has been receiving unsubstantiated reports – spread through text message and social networking sites – since last week about alleged human organ trafficking in the city.

“Our diligent efforts at verifying these reports have led us to conclude that all these nasty rumors as at best without any basis or proof and are mere figments of the imagination,” he said in a statement.

Gatchalian said they are moving to identify the rumormongers.

He asked Valenzuela residents to report those spreading the rumors by calling city police chief Senior Superintendent Eric Reyes at 986-6627 or the Special Projects Team at 352-4000 locals 1822 and 1921.

Barangay Gen. T. de Leon chairman Rizalino Ferrer, in a certification sent to the mayor’s office dated March 3, said no children were abducted nor were dead bodies of children, with their internal organs missing, found in his barangay, contrary to rumors.