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Cops rescue businessman, kill 7 kidnap suspects in Laguna


(Updated 5:15 p.m.) MANILA, Philippines — Seven suspected kidnappers were killed Friday while their victim was rescued in what an official trumpeted as a "record-setting 12-hour police operation" in Laguna and Cavite. Senior Superintendent Isagani R. Nerez, chief of Police Anti-Crime Emergency Response (Pacer), said Jefferson Cheng and his driver, Florante Cariňosa, were on board a van to deliver tobacco products to customers when they were stopped by gunmen along Malipay Road in Bacoor town in Cavite at around 9:25 a.m. Friday. "Their van was blocked by unidentified armed men on board a blue van without plate number," Nerez said in a report to Director General Jesus Versoza, Philippine National Police (PNP) chief, and in a press statement on Saturday. The driver was forced out of the van along Las Piňas in Metro Manila and the gunmen took Cheng to an undisclosed location. Nerez said that four hours after the abduction, the victim's son Johnny Cheng received a phone call from someone asking for a P20 million ransom for his father's safe release. The younger Cheng contacted the Bacoor police and the Pacer, which then responded jointly with elements of the PNP Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG), the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (ISAFP), the Cavite Provincial Police and Manila Police Department, he said. With the help of concerned citizens and other law enforcement agencies in the region, Nerez said, the operatives tracked down the kidnappers at 7:15 p.m. and rescued Cheng in a safehouse along Executive Mabuhay City in Cabuyao, Laguna after a 15-minute firefight that resulted in the killing of three suspects.
Southern Luzon regional police director Chief Superintendent Perfecto Palad, in a radio interview with dzRH on Saturday, said rescuers found the victim handcuffed and isolated in a room. Two .45-caliber pistols and one .38-caliber revolver were recovered from the suspects, he said. Nerez said four other suspected members of the gang were killed in a subsequent shootout at a checkpoint in Daang Hari, Bacoor early Saturday. He said police manning the checkpoint noticed that a red Honda sedan, which was earlier reported to be the getaway car of the fleeing suspects in Laguna, opted to evade the checkpoint and counterflowed. When the law enforcers gave chase, the gunmen put up a fight, prompting a shootout. "After a 20-minute gunbattle, two of them (suspects) lay dead. Two others were taken to the nearest hospital without haste. It was learned later in the morning that the last two members did not make it despite the emergency measures done by the hospital staff," said Nerez. Police admitted that as of Saturday morning, they still could not identify the suspects, except for one who died on the spot in the Bacoor shootout. The suspect had an identification card with the name Demetrio Mendoza. "Hindi matukoy kung anong grupo ito. Noong halungkatin ng SOCO ang bangkay walang pagkakilanlan, walang dalang ID or cedula (We could not immediately determine who they are. When Scene of the Crime Operations people checked, they found no ID on them)," Palad said. Although kidnap-for-ransom incidents are nothing new in Metro Manila and nearby provinces, police say the number of cases have abated in the past years largely due to the cooperation of victims. On the other hand, kidnapping cases persist in the southern Philippines, with at least 56 people kidnapped in 26 incidents there in 2008. Of the total, 36 were either released through negotiations or rescued, nine were killed, and 11 remain in captivity. Police say a total of P45.92 million in ransom had been paid to the captors, who have been identified as members of the Abu Sayyaf and rogue elements of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). - GMANews.TV
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