My 30-year journey with MRPO  

“After Charlene, Who’s Next?” What we thought was a rhetorical question in 1993 sadly became prophetic.

The Movement for Restoration of Peace and Order (MRPO) was organized on Jan. 13, 1993 to lead the funeral protest march for 15-year old kidnap victim Charlene Sy.

What we intended to be an ad hoc group to call attention to the kidnapping menace became a permanent fixture in the criminal justice system and, 30 years hence, our members are still active and kidnapping incidents, though much reduced, are still with us.

I started documenting kidnapping incidents in 1992, toward the end of president Cory Aquino’s administration. We heard rumors of kidnap-for-ransom incidents of Tsinoys on a weekly basis – some were indeed rumors but I soon discovered that kidnapping was worse than I thought.

Things came to a head when, in September 1992, two teenage graduates of a Binondo school who had just started college were kidnapped and killed despite ransom payment. What shocked and angered the Tsinoy community was not that they were killed after ransom payment but that they were badly tortured before they were killed.

It was this incident that clinched the suspicions, which had been circulating since the news of kidnapping started to surface, that law enforcers were involved in kidnapping. The torture was a message from the kidnappers to the high police official who tried to cut into the ransom payment.

With this incident, I tried to feel the pulse of the Tsinoy community, to see if they were ready for a mass action and public protest, but I realized the community was not ready. Despite my admonition that unless the community acts, kidnapping will continue because it was an almost perfect crime. No one reported, no one cooperated with the police, everyone paid, paid big and paid fast. I kept telling the media and those who would listen that kidnapping will grow exponentially because we gave a signal that kidnapping pays and pays very lucratively.

It had to take another death to convince the Tsinoys that enough is enough. Charlene Mayne Sy, 15 years old, was killed in the cross-fire between her kidnappers and law enforcers. Charlene was used as a shield by the mastermind. The gruesome photo of Charlene, in her bloodied uniform, laid alongside her kidnappers on EDSA, was the last straw.

With Kaisa Para sa Kaunlaran as lead convenor,  MRPO was hastily organized as an ad hoc group to organize a funeral-protest march that would hopefully make the government listen and pay attention to the tragic outcome of the kidnapping scourge. Then senator Nikki Coseteng joined the meeting and lent courage and support to the group.

On Jan. 13, 1993, 20 buses lined up at the Binondo Plaza to take anyone who wanted to join the protest march to Araneta Ave. All the leading Tsinoy organizations and 200 other groups joined the first-ever Tsinoy mass action, truly a watershed moment in Tsinoy history.

I also called for closing of all Tsinoy schools and businesses in Binondo. I never had to ask twice, they readily agreed. Automotive parts stores on Banawe Street in Quezon City, open even during Christmas, New Year and Holy Week, joined the Binondo shops and closed because many of their members were victims of kidnappers and police extortion.

Stores, motor vehicles, posts emblazoned the message “After Charlene, who’s next?” We printed 100,000 of those stickers which shouted our frustration at government inaction.

What we thought was a rhetorical question saw 15-year-old student, Neil Patrick Quilloza, killed by kidnappers as he and his classmate, the real target, walked home. Another prominent Filipina, Zenaida Mendoza, the owner of Manila Steam Laundry, was abducted the day after Quilloza’s funeral, making the Filipino civil society realize that anyone, even Pinoys, can be victims too.

Veteran street parliamentarians organized the Citizens Action Against Crime (CAAC) in time to plan a mass action at the first National Summit on Peace and Order hastily called by president Fidel V. Ramos at the Philippine International Convention Center on Feb. 16.

MRPO gladly joined hands with CAAC and many other civil society groups. It was the largest mass action not convened by the progressive leftist groups after the People Power in 1986. While the funeral protest march of Charlene Sy had no groups identifying themselves or no placards being shown, the PICC rally saw them proudly identifying their groups and raising placards condemning government inaction.

MRPO had to go high profile after all these mass actions as there were threats against its members. “We had no weapons against well-organized, well-informed, well-armed kidnap-for-ransom gangs, we only had public opinion and public pressure to protect us,” I would tell the media as I accepted all interviews over TV, radio and even by telephone. I even called for a boycott of the payment of income taxes for April 1993 unless the government admits that kidnapping is not a narrow, parochial concern of the Tsinoy community but is a national problem.

Exactly 10 years after the funeral protest march and the PICC mass action, Betti Chua Sy, a financial analyst, a vice president for finance at Coca-Cola, was kidnapped and killed. MRPO organized another protest march. After the funeral, MRPO was re-organized to be made up mainly of kidnap victims. The organizations which initially joined the umbrella group had become inactive. I stepped down as chair. Meanne Dy, William Ho, Walter Sy followed and architect Ka Kuen Chua, himself a kidnap victim, has served as chairman for the last 10 years.

Today, 30 years hence, MRPO continues its main task of supporting kidnap victims and their families, submitting position papers to government, serving as resource persons to government agencies, including the Senate, on problems connected to criminality in the Tsinoy community.

The most important task of MRPO is to help its members overcome their abnormal post-trauma lives. Many remain scared and scarred. Families of those who lost their loved ones found solace and support in the existence of the group.

As the late Dr. June Lopez told MRPO in her many lectures, “MRPO is a potent support group. Being a member is already 50 percent of therapy.”

Most importantly, MRPO remains to be the voice of the Tsinoys in agitating for reforms in the criminal justice system and in making the government realize that as an integral part of Philippine society, what affects them affects the whole society.