4 Kids Kidnapped, Batangueños ask Duterte for Help


In a bizarre development which showed people's frustration with unabated criminality, several Batanguenos have gone to the social media to ask Davao City Mayor Rody Duterte to help them solve the reported kidnapping of children in the province.

DZRH News reported that "four children from different areas in Batangas have been missing and believed to have been abducted in separate times last August 27."

Police Insp. Hazel Parian Luma-Ang of the Batangas Police, said the Philippine National Police-Batangas already formed ‘Task Force Angel’ to focus on the investigation of the ballooning number of kidnapping incidents in their province, DZRH News said.

As reports on the kidnapping of the children swirled in the social media and major news networks, Batangueños asked Mayor Duterte to help solve the kidnapping.

The following posts were made on Twitter:
Trishia @trishialykel
Mayor Duterte pls visit batangas for at least one month i am srsly terrified by the news
6:41 PM - 3 Sep 2015
Bae♡J'K Lasheras  @jknnthbereached
We badly need you Mayor Duterte here in Batangas.
8:34 PM - 3 Sep 2015
ayi @_ohitsalyanna
WE NEED MAYOR DUTERTE HERE IN BATANGAS!!!! SHOOT TO KILL THOSE FVCKIN' KIDNAPPERS! 🔫🔫🔫
7:01 PM - 3 Sep 2015
@ysabellxx
we need duterte in batangas asap
9:33 PM - 3 Sep 2015

The Batangueños' appeal for Duterte's help in solving the alleged kidnapping of the children shows the growing frustration of people with government's perceived inability to address crime and drugs in the country.

Labeled by a Time Magazine article as "The Punisher" for his unconventional and sometimes controversial methods in addressing criminality in Davao City, Duterte has become a legend for turning the former Communist assassins' Killing Fields to one of the World's Safest Cities.

Duterte minces no words in issuing threats against criminals in Davao City.

"If you come to my city to do drugs, you will die. You kidnap or harm children you will die," Duterte repeatedly says in his Sunday morning TV program on ABS-CBN Southern Mindanao.

A few years ago, nine foreign nationals who established a "Shabu" laboratory in Davao City were all killed in an early morning raid led by Duterte himself.

Two years ago, a group of kidnappers who abducted a Filipino-Chinese businesswoman in Metro Manila and travelled all the way to Davao City to withdraw the ransom money from a bank were all mowed down by policemen in broad daylight.

Last year, an infant kidnapped in Davao City and brought to a nearby province was rescued in less than 48 hours while the killing of a restaurant chain owner whose body and car were recovered in Davao del Sur was solved in less than 72 hours.

Last month, a gangman who killed a taxi driver in a robbery ended up dead a few hours after Duterte promised the victim's family that "Justice will be done before sunrise."

Recently, Duterte was again a trending topic in the social media when I posted on this page an incident where a defiant local tourist who smoked inside a public establishment was forced to swallow his cigarette butt.

Duterte's successes in combatting crime, however, did not come easy or fast.

Under his leadership, Davao City invested in a modern 911 Emergency Response Service which is the only one of its kind in the whole country.

Using his intelligence fund as Mayor, Duterte has supported police and military operations and prohibits the bringing in of long firearms in the City.

He once told me that there was a point in his career as City Mayor when he made the resolve to do everything to make Davao City safe for its people.

"I was in my second term as Mayor and I said to myself I had to do it. I did not care whether I would win or lose in the next elections. I knew I had to do something and I was willing to pay the price," he said.

Duterte is paying the price.

The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) is breathing down his neck and there are reports that the administration is readying a long list of criminal complaints against Duterte should he decide to run for President.

It is unlikely that Duterte would yield to the appeal of the Batangueños for him to stay in the province to address the alleged kidnapping of children.

"Out of delicadeza, Mayor Duterte, much as he would like to, would not dip his finger into the reported kidnapping," said Maribojoc, Bohol Mayor Jun Evasco, a long-time political adviser of Mayor Duterte.

It would not be a long wait for the Batangueños and the rest of the country though.

As Duterte continues to soar in the survey for favoured Presidential prospects in 2016, the brand of leadership which made Davao City one of the Safest Cities in the World will soon be stamped all over the country. (MANNY PINOL)

(Photo credit: A screen grab of the ABS-CBN report on the alleged kidnapping of Batangas children made by US-based Duterte support Jeff de Guzman.)  

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