Tsinoy businessman appeals to abductors of 3 kids

Three Filipino-Chinese children and their driver remain missing after they were taken at gunpoint near their home in San Francisco del Monte in Quezon City on Oct. 3 last year.

Restaurant owner Michael Cua, father of the victims, appealed to the kidnappers yesterday to free his children and he would forget everything that had happened.

"Just release my children," he said in Fookienese and a smattering of Filipino through the help of a sister-in-law, who acted as interpreter.

Cua told The STAR in an interview that the kidnappers were demanding P10 million in ransom.

Cua said he and his wife were abroad when Jasmine, 14, Jovy, 13, and 12-year-old John Christian were kidnapped, along with their driver, while on board his Starex van on the way to a tutorial session.

Cua said he had talked twice with the kidnappers over the telephone last year, and that the last time they talked, the kidnappers became impatient and told him that his family had been given enough time to raise the money.

In their last conversation, Cua said the kidnappers asked him: "Do you love your children?" and that before he could answer the line was cut off.

Cua appealed to the public yesterday for any information on the whereabouts of his children: "If anybody has seen the children or had adopted them, please let us know," he said, holding back his tears.

Cua said investigators of the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF) told him that his children might have been mistakenly kidnapped, and that he and his brother could have been the real target.

Cua’s Starex van was found abandoned on a street in Paco, Manila and police found a caliber 9-mm. pistol inside but no trace of the victims or their driver.

Cua, the second Filipino-Chinese to come out and seek government help in rescuing kidnapped relatives, has asked President Arroyo to investigate rampant kidnapping activities in the Filipino-Chinese community.

Last week, Jenny Ong Lim, a Chinese woman, appealed to Mrs. Arroyo for help in bringing back her husband, Lin Jun Ziang, who was kidnapped on April 8 last year.

Lin’s kidnappers have not released him even after his family paid a ransom of P4.7 million.