Palace shrugs off report tagging PH as ‘high risk’ for kidnapping

MANILA, Philippines — Police and military are always on alert, Malacañang assured Thursday, as the United States Department of States tagged the Philippines as one of 35 countries with “high risk” for kidnapping.

“Well the PNP (Philippine National Police) and the military are always on alert. They have intelligence surveillance,” Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said in a Palace briefing.

Panelo downplayed the report, saying kidnapping “happens to every country.”

“Somehow, may makakalusot at makakalusot. It happens to every country,” he said.

The US report came after Allan Fajardo, aide of slain Tanauan City, Batangas mayor Antonio Halili, was abducted on April 3 at a four-star hotel in Nuvali district in Laguna.

READ: Slain Batangas mayor’s aide, trader ‘abducted’ in Laguna

Panelo dismissed the abduction of Fajardo as “an isolated incident.”

“But that’s an isolated incident given the hundred—how many Filipinos? 105 [million]? That’s isolated. There must be a determined kidnapper,” he said.

Suppressing criminality in the country was one of the campaign promises of President Rodrigo Duterte along with stopping the illegal drug trade and corruption in government. /kga