3 get life for kidnap of 4 Taiwanese nationals

The Pasay City Regional Court (RTC) yesterday sentenced to life imprisonment two drivers and a mechanic who kidnapped four Taiwanese nationals along the Diosdado Macapagal Boulevard more than four years ago.

Judge Edwin Ramizo also ordered Rogelio Fronda, Rolando Bernados and Rolly Manlapaz to pay victims Bruce Chien, Kung Shie Fang, Jerry Chang and another who was identified as a certain Chun, P800,000 each in actual damages and P400,000 each as moral damages.

Court records showed that on Dec. 12, 2003, at about 5:30 p.m., the victims were on their way to meet someone in the area and stopped at a gasoline station along Diosdado Macapagal Boulevard in Pasay City when the three suspects appeared, introduced themselves as policemen and arrested the four Taiwanese nationals.

The suspects used the victims’ car and another vehicle to transport Chien and his companions, who were blindfolded, to an undisclosed place.

The suspects took the victims’ cell phones, wristwatches, and wallets. Bernados later told Chien that they will only be released if they can produce P1 million as ransom.

The four victims pleaded with their abductors to lower the ransom until they agreed at P800,000.

Chien called his friend, Sky Long, to lend him P800,000. Long told Chien’s girlfriend, Rosel Esparago, about what happened to the four victims.

Esparago coordinated with the Police Anti-Crime and Emergency Response (PACER), which set an entrapment operation as Long brought the money near a mall along EDSA about seven hours after Chine was kidnapped. A man wearing a mask and riding a motorcycle took the money and fled.

At about 4 a.m. the following day, the four victims were released near an auto service center along Aurora Boulevard in Cubao, Quezon City.

Meanwhile, the PACER arrested the three suspects on Dec. 15, 2003 in a follow-up operation. The three suspects denied the allegations against them, saying they had alibis to prove their innocence.

Records showed that Bernados occasionally served as a confidential agent of the Armed Forces’ Civil Relations Service.

The judge, however, said an alibi “is an inherently weak defense” that cannot prevail over the testimony of Chien, who said “he saw the faces of his abductors from the time the latter approached them at the gasoline station until they were blindfolded.”

The testimony “of a single witness that is positive and credible is sufficient to sustain a conviction,” Ramizo added.