Editorial - An old scourge returns

While the government is preoccupied with the Abu Sayyaf and now the jueteng scandal, an old scourge has returned. On the night of Oct. 3, siblings Jasmine, John Christian and Joey Cua were kidnapped together with their driver Benito de la Cruz at the intersection of Del Monte and Cordillera streets in Quezon City. The kidnappers fled in a Hyundai Starex van.

Last Tuesday, five-year-old Eunice Kaye Chuang and her nanny Bibeth Montecino were also kidnapped in Binondo, Manila. Two days later, their bodies were found in the ceiling of the suspects’ hideout in Malolos, Bulacan. Police said the bodies bore signs of torture. They died of asphyxiation apparently due to being gagged for several hours. Two suspects have been arrested by the police for the abduction and murder of Chuang and Montecino. The fate of the Cua children is unknown.

Meanwhile, in North Cotabato, 14-year-old Vincent Uy was also kidnapped recently, with Muslim separatists believed to be the culprits. But the public is used to such crimes in Mindanao, where kidnappers never took a rest even after Joseph Estrada assumed the presidency. What’s worrisome is the resurgence of ransom kidnappings in Metro Manila, where most people thought the Philippine National Police had finally licked the problem. Yesterday, a civilian anti-crime group issued a warning particularly to the Filipino-Chinese community about the resurgence of ransom kidnappings.

Mr. Estrada was given the task of going after kidnappers when he was still vice president and head of the Presidential Anti-Crime Commission. After styling himself as a crimebuster, he won the presidency partly on a platform of peace and order. Now the kidnapping scourge has returned, and it comes at the worst possible time. The government is busy fending off attempts to unseat the President, while law enforcement agencies are busy handling street protests and quelling civil disturbance. Kidnappers apparently sense this weakness in government and are exploiting it. Now a child and a young woman are dead. The government must act quickly before this problem turns into yet another crisis for the administration.