treat your people well

Treat the people in your employ well because it is most probable that kidnappers acquire from them the information about the family.

This was the advice of Sr. Supt. Alan Purisima, provincial police director, to members of the Filipino-Chinese community in this city who sought the police’s guidance on how to prevent kidnapping.

It is often the families of Chinese-Filipinos, who are mostly businessmen, which are the target of the criminal communities. While there have been no reported kidnapping incidents in Pangasinan recently, it is best to undertake precautions to prevent the crime from happening, Purisima said.

The members of the Chinese-Filipino Chamber of Commerce here have thrown their support behind Purisima who is beleaguered by series of robbery and hold-up incidents in the province the past week.

Rosendo So, a businessman based in eastern Pangasinan, said he was confident in the capability of Purisima to finally nail down the criminals in Pangasinan.

“My family was a victim of kidnapping and it was (Purisima) who was then the head of the Pacer, who helped solved the crime. Recently, too, my employee was robbed of hundreds of thousands worth of cellular cards and this incident has been solved, too,” he told his fellow businessmen.

Purisima had been conducting talks with Chinese-Filipino businessmen in Pangasinan “to assure them that the police are always ready to help and to get their cooperation in running after the criminals.”

“If the community will not cooperate, it will be difficult for us to prevent and solve crimes. If you will not help us, we can’t do anything,” he told the businessmen.

Purisima also gave practical pieces of advice to prevent being kidnapped, robbed or held-up.

The most critical places where one can be kidnapped are the houses or schools. “It is when you are leaving or arriving in your homes or schools that the kidnappers usually strike. So you have to be very careful in these areas because you can’t change house or school daily,” he explained.

“Ninety nine percent of the time, the tipsters are close to the victims, like an employee, a neighbor or a relative.” he cautioned.

Purisima also told the businessmen to be very careful in their bank transactions and to use checkbooks instead of carrying large amounts of cash.

City Mayor Benjamin Lim expressed dismay over the recent hold-upping incident in the city, saying it looked like the police “was not doing enough to make the city safe.”

He asked Purisima to have a background check on the local police because “I have a strong feeling that directly or indirectly, some police are sympathetic or even in cahoots with criminals.”

Lim said the city planned to implement a Citizens ID system as a precaution against criminality in the city.

Filed under Uncategorized by Yolly Sotelo Fuertes.