Cotabato trader seized

COTABATO CITY, Philippines – Men armed with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles seized a Chinese-Filipino trader in this city last Monday afternoon, authorities said.

Up to five gunmen overpowered private security guards at the New Asian Marketing hardware store here and forcibly took away its owner, Nestor Tay, in his early 40s, said Col. Ernesto Aradanas, commander of the Army’s 603rd Infantry Brigade.

Mayor Japal Guiani said police later recovered the kidnappers’ abandoned getaway vehicle, and that a manhunt has been launched for the perpetrators.

“Some people involved in the kidnapping have already been identified. We will do everything to recover the victim,” Guiani said.

Tay’s kidnapping is the latest in a rash of abductions targeting affluent Chinese-Filipino businessmen.

Last February, Tay’s relative Wilson Tan, who owns a small hotel, and his daughter were kidnapped but freed after four days, allegedly after the payment of ransom, police said.

In June last year, a sister of another Chinese-Filipino businessman was also kidnapped and subsequently freed.

No suspects have been arrested for the kidnappings despite police claims of an intensified crackdown against armed gangs.

Various armed gangs, as well as Muslim separatist rebels and al-Qaeda-linked militants, operate in the often volatile southern region.

Elsewhere in the South, police and military officials are also trying to locate the whereabouts of a Japanese national believed taken by militants in Sulu last month.