Jap bizman killed on way to airport

A Japanese national operating a travel agency in Cebu was gunned down yesterday in an apparent ambush in Mandaue City while on the way to the Mactan Cebu International Airport to catch an early morning flight to Narita.

Hiroshi Kusaka, 49, was in a Mitsubishi L-300 van with Efren Rosales, who manages his HK Travel Agency, when shot at close range by two men on a motorcycle as it stopped for a red light at the intersection of Plaridel and Ouano streets in Mandaue City.

Rosales had fetched Kusaka from the condominuim where he was staying at around 6 a.m.

The two men on the motorcycle were both wearing black jackets, with the driver wearing black shorts and a scarf woven around his face to hide his identity. The gunman riding in the back wore dark colored denim pants.

As the van stopped for the red light, the motorcycle siddled up to the right side of the vehicle and the gunman fired several shots at Kusaka who was seated behind the driver.

The driver, who was unhurt, executed a quick u-turn and rushed the wounded Japanese businessman to the nearby Mandaue City Hospital but apparently his wounds were so severe that doctors said he was already dead when he arrived.

Mandaue City police chief Rodel Calungsod said the initial theory pertains to a business-related killing.

He said his investigators have found out that one of Kusaka’s associates, also a Japanese national, owed Kusaka some P20 million.

Calungsod said his men stumbled on the information when they opened the mobile phone of Kusaka and saw an undeleted text message he sent to SPO1 Benjamin Ngujo of the Waterfront police station in Cebu City asking to be informed if  a certain Tosiyuki Oda comes to Cebu.

In the message, Kusaka said he wants Oda jailed for failing to repay him the P20 million he owed.

In the same message, Kusaka said Oda double-crossed him.

Calungsod said they checked the veracity of the message with Ngujo and he confirmed that the slain businessman was indeed looking for Oda because of the debt.

Calungsod said a check with the Bureau of Immigration showed that Oda had not been to Cebu recently.

Kusaka’s staff at the HK Travel Agency, however, said Oda was in Cebu last October and could be in Manila now.

Kusaka has a wife in Japan but has been living in with a 21-year-old nursing student the past four years here.

Kusaka has other business in the Philippines aside from the travel agency. It was learned that he has a dried mango business in Cebu and a fashion accessories business in Manila.

Calungsod said police are not treating Rosales as a suspect nor are they holding him liable for tampering with evidence when he tried to clean the van with water from a faucet near the hospital.

The police officer said Rosales apparently just suffered from too much stress and did not know what he was doing.

Random shootings on crime-ridden Philippine streets are increasingly common, but attacks on foreign tourists are rare. (with Edwin Melecio, AFP/JST )