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.