Kidnapping and AMBER Alerts in the Philippines
Early this week, a 3-year old Matthew David Samudio was abducted from the Festival Mall in Alabang. Based on video taken by surveillance cameras, it appeared that a young girl, 12 or 13 years old, talked to the little boy, took him by the hand and led him away. His family posted an appeal for help at their blog.
The story has a very happy ending. Today, Matthew was reunited with his family. He was gone for 3 days, apparently taken by an organized group that uses children to make money by begging on the streets. Matthew was found in Sta. Rosa, Laguna, less than an hour from where he was taken. You can read about the happy story at the family’s blog.
The media has covered this story from beginning to end. This video shows the little boy when he reunited with his family. Watch and listen carefully, cause something the reporter said struck me as odd.
If you didn’t catch that, here’s what the reporter said near the end of the clip:
… police said that they still will pursue the investigation, as they yet have to know the motive of the case. But as early as now, they doubt that it is kidnapping since there was no ransom demanded, and the kid wasn’t forcefully taken based on the CCTV video.
I am not familiar with anti-kidnapping laws in the Philippines. But it would seem illogical not to call this a kidnapping. Ransom or not, the boy was taken from his family by strangers, for their own twisted purposes. The fact that he wasn’t grabbed forcefully is insignificant. He’s 3 years old and obviously not aware that he shouldn’t go anywhere with people he doesn’t know. What else can this case be called but simple and straightforward abduction? The fact that another child, a girl of 13, was used to carry out the scheme only magnifies the crime.
This is one story that has a good ending. But there are many other children in the Philippines who are still missing. Isn’t it time for the government to put an AMBER Alert program in place? AMBER Alerts are widely used in the U.S. and have been instrumental in reuniting missing kids with their families as quickly as possible. The alerts are broadcast on TV, radio, electronic billboards, police radios and even cell phones.
I mention cell phones because in the Philippines, this is the broadcast medium that will likely be quickest and the most effective in getting word out of a child abduction. The country is the cell phone capital of the world after all, so why not put that fact to good use? As for cost, cellphone service providers can be called upon to participate, as they already do in the U.S. There are a lot of benefits for them to do this. Tax credits, a good public image, and humanitarian reasons are just three of them.
If there were an AMBER Alert already in place when Matthew Samudio was taken on July 22, he and his abductor probably wouldn’t have made it far before people would start to recognize them.
I’ve heard of an alert system called Sagip-Bata that was supposedly in the works a few years ago. Unfortunately, I can’t find any information on this now. If it has pushed through, I’m wondering why it is not used more for cases like Matthew’s. If there isn’t a system in place, now would be a good time for it, don’t you think?
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