Ethnic Chinese close stores to protest killing

Ethnic Chinese close stores to protest killing

MANILA (Reuters): Manila's economically powerful ethnic Chinese community closed stores and schools yesterday to protest the killing of a Filipino-Chinese businessman by kidnappers.

A few hours before the funeral procession for Gordon Tan, killed last week as he fought with gunmen trying to abduct him, another ethnic Chinese trader was abducted in the Philippine capital.

Hundreds of Filipino-Chinese businessmen, office workers and students joined the funeral, carrying signs saying, "Kidnappers your day will come".

Kidnap-for-ransom has become the scourge of the Chinese community. Though only a small minority in a country of 70 million, Filipino-Chinese make up the richest group, controlling 30 percent of the country's top 1,000 firms.

Tan was the 17th person killed by kidnappers this year.

Shortly before Tan's funeral, five gunmen forced another Chinese businessman into a car near his residence in the Philippine capital Manila and sped away, police said.

He was the 204th victim of kidnap gangs in the country this year, according to the citizens' anticrime watchdog Movement for the Restoration of Peace and Order (MRPO).

The mourners for Tan included several politicians, including Manila's Mayor Alfredo Lim, an ethnic Chinese and possible presidential candidate in next May's elections.

More than a third of stores in Manila's Chinatown shut down for the day to protest the police failure to curb kidnapping for ransom, which has become a major blot on President Fidel Ramos' administration.

Dozens of other Chinese-owned stores and a dozen schools also bolted their doors in Manila, the first such show of indignation by the Chinese community in the capital.

Ramos has repeatedly ordered the police to crack down on kidnap gangs but they continue to operate with virtual impunity, and there have been repeated charges that many involve the military or police.

The MRPO said kidnapping had become a thriving business, with criminals collecting at least 289 million pesos (US$8.2 million) in ransom in the first 11 months of this year -- nearly three times the amount collected in all of last year.