Sunday, January 12, 2003
Dutch tourists still missing: coast guard
By Victor L. Camion
THE Philippine Coast Guard here categorically denied Friday reports that the three missing Dutch tourists and their two Filipino guides have been recovered and are now recuperating in Iloilo City.
Andrew Sienes, Operation Officer of the local Coast Guard here, told Sun.Star the reports were not true and described them as "palakaw" (rumour).
Sienes said that the local office verified the report through radio in Iloilo City but that the PCG office there denied it.
He said the Iloilo PCG told them that a radio station in Iloilo City initially reported the recovery of the three missing Dutch tourists but that it proved to be a false alarm.
Sienes said the victims' family in Coral Cay Beach Resort in Barangay Sulangon, San Juan, Siquijor province also denied the report.
Earlier two friends of the missing Dutch tourists, Bart Koeman and Ineke Ten Hertog, offered to pay a P50,000-reward to anyone who can give information that could lead to the recovery of three men.
Helen Jardin, owner and operator of the Coral Cay Beach Resort identified the missing Dutch nationals as Jan Marcenous Wilderom, 34; Jan Yajoo Wilderom, 30 and Nicklass Bisschop, 48.
The foreigners and their guides Alejandro Manengo who owns the chartered craft and Leoncio Capistrano were believed to have drowned and their boat capsized in the shark-infested waters between the islands of Apo and Siquijor because of strong sea current and strong winds past noon last December 18.
The five missing persons left Siquijor island on board the hired private pump boat named Sto. Niņo 11:30 before noon time that fateful day but failed to turn up at Apo Island.
The Wilderom brothers checked in at Coral Cay on December 16 while Bisschop had been on the resort since December 12.
The Philippine Coast Guard based in Dumaguete City described the disappearances of the five individuals as a mystery.
Massive search and rescue operations for the missing three Dutch tourists and their two Filipino guides were called off after more than two weeks of fruitless scouring of the seas between Siquijor and Apo islands and finding not even a trace of the victims nor any debris from their ill-fated motorized pump boat.
A source at the PCG ruled out the possibility that the victims could have been kidnapped by Abu Sayyaf bandits because the boat had also disappeared.
"Kung gikidnap man ugaling ang mga biktima, nabilin sab unta ang ilang gisakyang pumpboat," the source added.
