THE Philippine National Police has asked the public not to concoct “kidnap-me” schemes to evade family problems after it recently encountered a hoax-kidnapping incident over the weekend in Makati City.
Last Friday, relatives of Princess Hannah Cauilan and her 4-year-old son, both residents of Makati City, called up the police and reported the mother and son as missing. Their captors had allegedly demanded the relatives to remit P100,000 through a wire money transfer in exchange for their release.
But on Sunday, when the PNP Anti-Kidnapping Group operatives were about to arrest the alleged “kidnappers,” they found out that the whole thing was a hoax. They said it was Cauilan herself who withdrew from a bank at a Guadalupe mall the initial tranche of money worth P25,000 that was demanded from the husband. Authorities found her son at the lobby of a nearby hotel.
“Lumabas na ginawa lang nung nanay ‘yung pag-kidnap kasi gusto huthutan ‘yung asawa niya,” Senior Superintendent Roberto Fajardo, PNP AKG acting director, said in a press briefing on Monday.
Fajardo said when the operatives interviewed Cauilan’s son, the boy said he and his mother were not taken by abductors. “They were together the whole time and they even went to Manila Zoo,” he said.
He said Cauilan’s husband was shocked when threats about selling his son or his son’s internal organs were made by the “kidnappers” if he wouldn’t pay up.
“We are hoping that congressmen would look into this. Sayang mga resources natin sa kidnap-me. Sayang ‘yung pagod namin. Hindi kami natulog dahil dito. But again, we work very hard basta iparating lang sa PNP,” the police official said.
Since the start of this year, the PNP recorded three hoax kidnapping incidents. AC