ZAMBOANGA CITY/MANILA, 19 November 2003 — A senior executive who was reported abducted in Manila on Saturday had been found dead, dampening the news of the escape of a mother and her two children from a kidnap gang in the southern Philippines.

Betty Sy, commercial finance director of Coca-Cola Export Corp., died apparently from blood loss a day after she was seized by unidentified gunmen, police said.

National police chief Hermogenes Ebdane said the 32-year-old victim was early found yesterday wrapped in a taped-up blanket inside black plastic garbage bags on a seaside road in suburban Para?aque City.

She was shot twice in her right leg and apparently bled to death, Ebdane said.

Her car was found early Monday abandoned in suburban Quezon City with bullet holes and a pool of blood on the floor.

Witnesses said they saw several men carry her, apparently unconscious, from her car to another vehicle.

Quezon City’s police chief said investigators are looking into possible motives, including kidnapping for ransom and vengeance killing.

Ang See said the kidnappers had demanded a 10 million peso ($182,000) ransom from Sy’s family, but terminated negotiations just hours after they took her early Monday.

Ang See said the kidnapping situation in the country now is the worst in about 10 years, with a several-week stretch in August-September averaging a kidnapping a day. There have been more than 100 abductions so far this year, she added.

“This case would be our test case (for the authorities). It’s time they keep their promises,” she said.

Escape in Basilan

In the southern island of Basilan, government troops yesterday said they recovered Noraida Hayudini and her two children, aged 1 and 6, in the village of Kapago in Tuburan town around 3 a.m.

Hayudini is one of the sisters of Mayor Yasser Hayudini of Patikul town in Jolo Island, said Maj. Gen. Trifonio Salazar, commander of the army’s First Infantry Division, who found the victims after they reportedly escaped from their captors.

The trio were kidnapped by gunmen in Zamboanga City in August and brought to Basilan.

Salazar said the woman and her children were taken to a military camp where they had been attended to by medical personnel.

“We are getting information from the woman about her ordeal and the identities of the kidnappers, but we cannot give out details just yet because there is an ongoing operation to track down the suspects in Basilan,” Salazar said.

He said the kidnappers had demanded a one-million-pesos ransom from the victim’s family.

Alarming Upsurge

The kidnapping and murder of Sy is the worst abduction case so far this year, said Teresita Ang See, leader of the anti-crime watchdog group Citizens’ Action Against Crime.

Minority ethnic Chinese in the Philippines are a common target for kidnap gangs, and abductions tend to rise in the period before Christmas and ahead of elections, which are scheduled for next May.

Ang See said there had been a 30 percent increase in kidnap cases in the first nine months of the year. By the end of October, she said a total of 110 cases had been reported, involving 165 victims. About 60 percent of the cases were in Manila.

Acknowledging the country’s growing kidnapping problem, President Gloria Arroyo last month appointed former Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes to coordinate various government agencies trying to battle the crime.

Reyes, a retired general and former defense secretary, said there had been an “alarming” increase in kidnap-for-ransom cases this year.

But he said only 82 cases had been reported as of October, compared to 63 kidnap incidents for the same period in 2002. (Additional input from agencies)