Asia Times: HEY, JOE<BR> It's crime time


	June 19, 2001	atimes.com

Southeast Asia

HEY, JOE
It's crime time
By Ted Lerner

MANILA - Filipinos often joke they can brag to foreigners that their police force is perhaps the fastest in the world when it comes to responding to a crime.

While police in other countries may take 15 or 10 or even just five minutes to arrive at the scene of a crime, in the Philippines, the police are often there the moment a crime is committed. And how, the foreigners inevitably ask, can this be so? The answer is simple - the police are the ones committing the crimes.

It perhaps speaks to the casual and light-hearted approach to Filipino life that they can find humor in even the most dire of circumstances, including that of having the people who are supposed to be the ones protecting you actually being the ones terrorizing you. But while Filipinos might possess the unique ability to make light of their problems, recently the joke is not so funny anymore.

The past few months have seen an alarming escalation in crime in the Philippines. From kidnaps for ransom to armed robbery, rape, murder, election related killings and petty hold-ups, everyone you talk to these days has either a horror story to tell, or knows someone to whom something awful has happened. From the family down the street whose sari-sari store (canteen) was robbed, to the screaming headlines in the newspapers, one cannot go far without being confronted with the ugly fact; crime is on the loose and you cannot count on the authorities to protect you.

That men in uniform may figure in the more sensational crimes is something that is talked about openly. Certainly, the extremely violent Abu Sayyaf terrorist group - which is currently holding more than 20 people hostage, including some Americans, snatched from a beach resort on the island of Palawan - is a cancer that must be removed. But what many Filipinos are most alarmed about is the ineptitude of the their armed forces in dealing with a band probably only several hundred in number.

In their latest escapade, the Abu Sayyaf traveled 300 nautical miles from Palawan with their hostages and were never once spotted by Philippine naval or air forces. The military claims the bandits had faster speed boats and simply outran the naval blockade. But one Filipino hostage who escaped claimed the Abu Sayyaf ditched their speed boat along the way and commandeered an ordinary and relatively slow boat from a local fisherman for the last day-and-a-half of the trip to the bandits' lair on the island of Basilan. And yet they were never spotted.

Several days later, about 50 Abu Sayyaf, with hostages in tow, took over a church and neighboring hospital in the Basilan town of Lamitan. The military, armed with tanks, helicopter gunships and superior troop numbers, caught up with the group and appeared to have them right where they wanted them. But in an unimaginably farcical scenario, all of the Abu Sayyaf were able to escape with most of their hostages after a several-hours-long gunfight, leaving 15 soldiers dead. Even more incredible was the fact that the group disappeared into the jungle without trace. Several days later, the bandits raided a local plantation and took 15 more hostages, and the military still had no idea where the group was hiding.

To a person, ordinary Filipinos are of one opinion; that the only way this small group of men could seem to run circles around the military is because of what they call "monkey business". A former Abu Sayyaf rebel confesses in an upcoming book about the group - which was previewed on the website of Philippine broadcast giant ABS-CBN - that when they were formed in the mid-1980s they not only received weapons from their Muslim sponsors abroad, but they were also able to buy them secretly from the Philippine military.

In addition, the Abu Sayyaf's criminal activities have garnered huge sums of money, especially last year when they snatched 20-plus foreign tourists from the Malaysian resort of Sipadan. The Germans, Malaysians and then the Libyans were known to have coughed up over US$20 million to settle the crisis. The obvious conclusion of Filipinos? The huge sums of illicit cash passing through various hands is perhaps, to those involved, a phenomenon too good to put a stop to.

While the Abu Sayyaf presents the highest profile criminal act taking place in the Philippines, other less publicized crimes similar in nature have become quite common. In the past few months kidnap for ransom has become perhaps the hottest growth industry in the country. The preferred target for kidnapping used to be local Filipino Chinese businessmen. Nowadays, even low key, foreign businessmen are not safe. Recently, four Singaporean businessmen were kidnapped by still unidentified abductors in separate incidents. The most recent, trader Roger Yeo Chow Meng, was seized outside of his office in Manila. His wife in Singapore, working secretly and without any police assistance, shelled out $163,000 in ransom money to win his freedom.

While all of the Singaporeans escaped by paying ransom money, the police have yet to identify any of the kidnappers. Interestingly, the local media never even picked up on the kidnapping of Yeo until his wife talked to the local press.

"I was cornered into a situation," she said, "where I had to make a decision for the safety of my husband." In a recent editorial addressing the crime wave, the Daily Tribune newspaper asked, "Have our new leaders of the police and military been able to crush these kidnappers, or are some in the military and the police back to their old business of kidnapping, since this activity brings in more money than stealing cars?"

Filipinos are so wary of the exploits of the men in uniform that many refuse to stop when they see police or military check points on the city streets, lest they be accosted by rogue elements. This distrust between the public and their supposed protectors recently took a tragic twist.

A Filipino executive for the New World Hotel in Manila was driving home at night down a busy thoroughfare in Metro Manila accompanied by his two teenage daughters when he noticed several armed men in police uniforms ahead. Thinking they might be car jackers disguised as police, the executive turned around and headed in the opposite direction. The police happened to be out on the street waiting to make a sting on a local kidnap for ransom gang. The car they were waiting for resembled the car of the executive. When they saw the executive's car turn around and speed away, the police figured it must be the kidnappers. They opened fire, killing the man and one of his daughters.

While the perpetrators have been arrested, the senseless killings shocked the nation and seemed to reinforce the public's lack of trust in those assigned to protect them. This is obviously not an ideal state of affairs.

Whether or not those committing the crimes are rebels, rogue cops or just plain criminals no longer seems to matter to the public. What matters is that crime in the Philippines seems to be spiraling out of control, and people can't count on anyone except themselves to stay safe.

Ted Lerner is the author of the book Hey, Joe - a slice of the city, an American in Manila. He can be reached via email at tedlheyjoe@yahoo.com

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