Field officials of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) who were victims of kidnap-for-ransom (KFR) have expressed reluctance to file criminal complaints against their abductors to protect their privacy and possible reprisal.
A Metro Manila revenue district officer (RDO) who was an apparent kidnap victim said “my family has suffered a lot already, attending court hearings would only relive bad memories.”
He made the statement after National Capital Region Police Office chief Major General Guillermo Eleazar asked victims to testify in court against suspected kidnappers, one of whom was killed during a police operations in Marilao, Bulacan, last week.
To recall, the Manila Bulletin exposed last year the existence of kidnap ring when three Metro Manila RDOs, all female, were separately and almost simultaneously abducted one of whom immediately resigned from the service after the incident.
Since then a number of revenue officials, mostly RDOs, suffered the same fate even as a suspected syndicate’s tipster and a revenue examiner assigned in Rizal province as well as one of his cohorts disappeared after being abducted separately by armed men in Marikina and Eastwood, Quezon City, respectively.
Informed sources said the recent victim was a Metro Manila RDO whose location was traced by kidnappers who secretly installed a global positioning system (GPS) in his vehicle.
Insiders said the police belatedly learned about the series of abductions because there was no complainant and nobody has yet been killed for the police to conduct investigation.
President Duterte ordered PNP chief Oscar Albayalde and Eleazar to conduct a crackdown against the KFR operations when top revenue officials informed him about the incident.
The management learned about the incident when key field officials frequently absenting themselves to avoid the kidnappers. (Jun Ramirez)
