Death of a businessman: How the Philippines drugs war was slowed

Samsung Electro-Mechanics

12/02/2017 23:00

By Karen Lema and Martin Petty 
    MANILA, Feb 13 (Reuters) - When Philippines President 
Rodrigo Duterte summoned his security chiefs to an urgent 
meeting one Sunday night last month, his mind was already made 
up. 
    His military and law enforcement heads had no idea what was 
coming: a suspension of the police force's leading role in his 
signature campaign, a merciless war on illegal drugs. 
    There was only one reason for the U-turn, three people who 
attended the Jan. 29 meeting told Reuters. Duterte was furious 
that drugs-squad cops had not only kidnapped and murdered a 
South Korean businessman, they had strangled him to death in the 
headquarters of the Philippines National Police itself. 
    "He was straight to the point - 'I am ordering you to 
disband your anti-drug units, all units'," said Defence 
Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, who was at the meeting in the 
presidential palace. 
    Duterte decided that the much smaller Philippine Drug 
Enforcement Agency (PDEA) would take over the drugs crackdown, 
with support from the military. 
    It was a stunning turnaround by Duterte, who had until then 
stood unswervingly behind his police force through months of 
allegations that its officers were guilty of extra-judicial 
killings and colluding with hit men in a campaign that has 
claimed the lives of more than 7,600 people, mostly drug pushers 
and users, in seven months. 
    The blunt-spoken president had repeatedly defied calls from 
United Nations, the United States and the European Union to rein 
in his war on drugs, calling them stupid and 'sons of bitches'. 
Duterte's aides were used to his mercurial style, but they were 
taken aback that the killing of one foreigner would be enough to 
stop him in his tracks. 
    One explanation is that relations with South Korea are of 
huge importance to the Philippines for development aid, tourism, 
overseas employment and military hardware. 
    But security officials said it was the audacity of the 
killing of Jee Ick-joo and the attempt to use the war on drugs 
as a cover for kidnap and ransom that triggered his decision. 
    "It's all about the Korean. That it happened at all, it's 
really that (which) pissed him off," Lorenzana told Reuters. 
    PDEA Director General Isidro Lapena, who was also at the 
meeting, hadn't seen it coming either. He said in an interview 
that the president had lambasted the police force and told them 
that the "deactivation" and purge of its anti-drugs unit was now 
as important as the drugs war itself. 
    Police Director General Ronald dela Rosa told Reuters that 
Duterte had been "really mad" about the incident and, after the 
meeting, the president publicly denounced the police force as 
"corrupt to the core". 
     
    "SO OBVIOUS" 
    The president's legal counsel, Salvador Panelo, said the 
president, a former prosecutor, makes decisions strictly on the 
basis of the letter of the law. Activists' allegations of 
summary executions had no supporting evidence, he said, yet to 
Duterte, Jee's killing was irrefutable, audacious and 
embarrassing. 
    "The committing of that crime was so obvious," he said. 
    Worried that the incident would dent the Philippines' image 
in South Korea, Duterte sent Panelo to Seoul to apologise to 
acting president Hwang Kyo-ahn. 
    Seoul is Manila's biggest supplier of military hardware, 
donating or selling fighter jets, patrol boats, frigates and 
trucks. 
    About 1.4 million South Koreans visited the Philippines in 
the first 10 months of 2016 - a quarter of all tourists arrivals 
- lured by beaches, golf and the sex industry. Korean tourists 
spend an average $180-$200 daily, and their overall spending is 
triple that of U.S. visitors. 
    South Korea is the Philippines' fifth-largest source of 
development aid and in 2015 invested $520 million in areas like 
power, tourism and electronics manufacturing. 
    About 55,000 Filipinos work in South Korea and the 
Philippines attracts Koreans studying English, over 3,700 of 
them last year. 
    A South Korean diplomat in Manila said there were no threats 
or pressure on the Philippine government over the killing of the 
businessman, but Seoul wanted a guarantee of safety for its 
citizens and a secure investment climate. 
    Hoik Lee, president of the Korean Chamber of Commerce in the 
Philippines, said South Koreans felt increasingly unsafe in the 
country. 
    The chamber's membership has grown from 20 firms in 1995 to 
500 companies now, including Samsung Electro-Mechanics 
 009150.KS , Hanjin and LG  003550.KS , but Lee estimated that 
the Korean community has shrunk by about a third to 100,000 
people since 2013 despite the bright economic outlook in the 
Philippines. 
    "Police should protect us not kill us," Lee said. "That is 
why we are very upset and very shocked." 
    The number of Koreans murdered in the Philippines averages 
about 10 each year, accounting for a third of all Korean 
nationals killed overseas, according to Seoul's foreign 
ministry. 
    However, South Koreans are perpetrators of crime as much as 
they are its victims in the Philippines, says the police 
Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, which has a Korean 
desk handling cases of kidnappings, murder, robbery, theft, 
extortion and fraud, mostly in Korean communities, where mafias 
operate. 
 
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Graphic on South Korean tourists in the Philippines    http://tmsnrt.rs/2kfK1xG 
Graphic on South Koreans in the Philippines    http://tmsnrt.rs/2jYAsCi 
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 (Additional reporting by Ju-min Park in Seoul and Neil Jerome 
Morales and Manuel Mogato in Manila; Editing by John Chalmers 
and Raju Gopalakrishnan) 
 ((martin.petty@tr.com; +63 2841 8937)) 
 
Keywords: PHILIPPINES DRUGS/SOUTHKOREA