Filipino-Chinese family massacre stuns Manila

Filipino-Chinese family massacre stuns Manila

MANILA (AFP): The murder of a Filipino-Chinese woman and her
two young daughters in a suburb of the Philippine capital has
stunned the city as police yesterday admitted they were mystified
by the killing.

Maria Fe Chui, 30, her daughters Maria Connie, 6, and Maria
Christina, 9, were all stabbed to death in their own home on
Saturday, said district police deputy director, Senior Inspector
David Benavidez.

The killing comes after the revelation last week that Manuel
Luis Ongpin, 19, nephew of a former finance secretary, was
kidnapped and murdered by a criminal gang on March 26, who still
tried to obtain ransom from his family.

The father of the Chui family, Peter Chui, was at his garments
factory when the murder occurred.

The family's two household maids told police they were sent
out on an errand that day and when they returned less than an
hour later, they found the mother and her two daughters
"butchered in their own home," Benavidez said.

Benavidez said it was "a very well-planned killing" and that
robbery was apparently not the motive because no property was
stolen. "The place was not in disarray. Everything was in order,
no items were missing," he said.

"We are at a loss," Benavidez said.

The latest killing grabbed headlines of local papers which
were still reporting on the aftermath of the Ongpin kidnap-murder
case.

President Fidel Ramos, in a speech at special anti-crime
summit last week, admitted that the incidence of bank robberies
and kidnappings had reached a serious state but insisted that the
country was not under siege from criminals despite the image
projected by the media.

Brazen daylight bank robberies and kidnappings for ransom,
many of them targeting the wealth ethnic Chinese community, have
become a major embarrassment to Ramos, a former national police
chief.