Korean couple shot dead in P’panga

SAN FERNANDO, Pam­panga – Masked men shot dead a Korean couple in their home in Porac town on Christmas day as their two terrified children hid and watched, police said Thursday.

Oh Young Kwan, 38, and his wife, Lee Hyen Koung, 36, were killed in Go-Hyang Ville, a Korean enclave in Porac town on Tuesday, but the incident was not reported to the police until the next morning, said Porac police chief Superintendent Rolly Mendoza.

Mendoza said investigators were still digging for clues but robbery seems unlikely to be the motive of the three attackers, including two men wearing ski masks and camouflage pants and another wearing a baseball cap.

Money and other valuables were left untouched, but some items in the Korean family’s home were in disarray, indicating the assailants were searching for something, he added. There was no sign of forcible entry.

He quoted the couple’s 10-year-old daughter and nine-year-old son as saying they saw from their rooms the men hitting their father in the living room. Frightened, they hid, then heard shots.

An estimated 70,000 to 100,000 Koreans are living in the Philippines.

More than 400,000 Korean tourists also visited the country for the first 11 months of the year, comprising the second-largest tourist group next to Americans, the immigration bureau said. – Ric Sapnu, AP