Busting Boomtown

KOREATOWN, Angeles City – This place hosts the biggest concentration of businesses and commercial establishments of South Korean nationals hereabouts, hence the moniker.

At the enclave’s early stage over some 15 years ago, Friendship Highway which runs through it was dubbed the 38^th Parallel: establishments on its west side alleged to be devoted to South Korea, and those on the east side partial to Kim’s North. Brawls were a nightly occurrence for sometime, until the hustle of trade and the bustle of commerce invested a more serene business climate there.

Koreatown thrives. Witness the volume of vehicular traffic there, which the one-way scheme the city government imposed has failed to contain.

So much has Koreatown flourished that it has assumed the proportion, nay, the very fullness of the fabled El Dorado of the Old West that, naturally, drew in droves the infamous desperadoes.

Thus, sans sworn statements, even absent blottered names, the verity in the collective lament: “Open season: Koreans fair game” to just about every crook, conman and criminal, local or Korean, civilian or…ay, many times uniformed.

Extortion was rampant. Victims though kept their quiet, understandably afraid of the extortionists – especially when uniformed – upping their ante from six digits to seven, to dear life itself. Still, a few cases surfaced. One can find them in the web.

There was the all-too-common modus “girl-baiting” whereby, in Jan. 2015, a Korean was “framed-up” with human trafficking after he paid a “bar fine” to take out a sex worker from a Fields Avenue nightspot.

Two cops “arrested” the Korean but took him to their safe house instead of the police station and demanded P1 million. The victim managed to cough up P200,000. It was when the rogue cops collected the balance of P800,000 that they were pounced upon by their own colleagues.

Weeds

Then-police RD Chief Supt. Roland Santos proudly declared: “We are weeding out police scalawags victimizing foreigners [in Angeles City],” referencing to a campaign he initiated in December 2014. Santos has since moved on to Calabarzon and subsequently retired. And the scalawags, like the bad weeds that they are, thrived.

“I ‘wuz raped” was the game played by scalawags on eight Koreans in January 2016. A woman, accompanied by police, accused the eight of gang-rape. The alleged victim though was seen in CCTV recordings while happily hopping from one eatery to another with a Korean companion at the time of the alleged rape.

The Koreans cried “police extortion” in a protest rally, and no case was ever filed.

One “shakedown” – a Korean businessman and his employee filed a complaint against the then Police Station 5 officer-in-charge for allegedly searching their business premises without any warrant in Dec. 2015.   

Suicides

A phenomenon – not necessarily involving the local police but as devastating to the Korean community – was the case of questionable suicides.

In August 2012, two South Koreans were found dead, both apparent suicides, in the city.

Kim Song-hee, 27, is said to have fallen from the 5^th Floor of Hotel Vida. There were no witnesses to her fall. No suicide note too. A CCTV footage though showed her husband dragging the victim outside their room at 12:05 a.m.!

Hyeokyeob Kwon, 37, resident of Diamond Subdivision in Barangay Balibago “apparently committed suicide” by drinking a ferric chloride solution inside his hotel room in nearby Barangay Malabanias. A note written in Korean was found in the room.

Two other cases of suicide of Koreans we remember – alas we cannot just find the news stories about them – were both males who hang themselves using electrical cords with their feet touching the ground, reportedly for having squandered money entrusted to them for investments.

Then the killings, as listed in our banner of Wednesday.

One Her Tae Suk, 65, shot dead while walking with three other Koreans toward Prism Hotel in Clarkview Avenue on Feb. 19, 2014.

Indeed, as early as 2014, crimes committed against Koreans particularly in Angeles City have provoked the Korea Times to headline Philippines turns into death trap for Koreans in a three-part series.

And the killings have not stopped.

Park Youn Jae, 60, owner of Royal Hotel in Barangay Cutcut, shot dead inside his office at the Koreatown along Friendship Highway here on Sept. 17, 2015.

Then on Oct. 12, 2016, the discovery of the bodies of three Koreans – two males and one female – with gunshots to their heads found in a sugar cane field by the FVR Megadike in Bacolor town. The victims came from Angeles City.

Most heinous, unarguably, the kidnap – from his home in Friendship Plaza – and the killing – right at Camp Crame – of Jee Ick Joo perpetrated by policemen last October 18.

Friendship Plaza the locus anew of police-perpetrated crime in the warrantless “arrest” and illegal detention of three Koreans by seven cops belonging to notorious Station 5, filching P300,000 from them at the station, aside from carting away shoes, golf clubs, jewelry and P150,000 cash from their house.

These scalawags have been placed under restrictive custody, as administrative cases and summary dismissal proceedings are being set against them.

As of this writing, Wednesday evening, TV Patrol reported the sacking of Angeles City police director Senior Supt. Sydney Villaflor by PRO 3 director Chief Supt. Aaron Aquino.

A source in Koreatown called to say that the community welcomes “these positive developments.”

“To an extent, we have been relieved of the tension that gripped us these past weeks,” he said. “But still, we hope to hear a word from our mayor.”