NBI-NCR takes over Tarlac first big-time kidnap case

TARLAC CITY — The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) has taken over from the police here the task of pursuing the province’s first big-time kidnapping case involving a Filipino-Chinese businessman. This, even as authorities here remained to be at a loss for clues on the identities of the suspects and where they could be possibly holding hostage the 51-year-old Ricardo Sy, or if the victim is still alive.

Surprisingly, when the media checked with the NBI’s office here for progress reports on the incident, they were instead told that it is actually the bureau’s National Capital Region (NCR) office that is holding the case. Moreover, bureau agents here refused to comment on why the case was not allowed to be handled by them.

Police authorities also turned tight-lipped on this development, although sources have it that the police provincial office at Camp Makabulos and the city police station here, as well as the NBI in the province, will now merely serve as "backup forces" in the investigation. But an unimpeachable source said it was one of the victim’s children, lawyer Ricardo Morales II, who preferred to have his father’s case to be handled by the NBI-NCR. Morales is the registered Filipino surname of Sy.

Morales heads the special laws division of the NBI. The source, as well as the victim’s family, would not however comment on widespread speculations that they were dissatisfied with the failure of local lawmen to at least identify the suspects and the criminal gang to which they could belong, and at least pinpoint which province in Central or Northern Luzon where Sy is being held hostage.

Another source close to the Sys furthered that, although there were three callers separately claiming to holding the businessman hostage and each demanding P20 million in ransom payment, all of them have still failed to put the victim on the line to show a "proof of life." — Benjie Villa