The siege

AN INTERNATIONAL incident that could have easily triggered a major irritation, maybe even estrangement, between the Philippines and South Korea.
That was the virtual siege laid out by the people of Neplum Inc. on the Royal Garden Golf and Country Club, a joint venture of local businessman Ruperto Cruz and South Korean Nam Suek.
Neplum, a company owned by the politically powerful Nepomuceno clan, by virtue of their claimed ownership of a portion of the road leading to the golf course walled in that claimed portion before dawn Monday, posted “No trespassing” signs in English and Korean, and deployed scores of uniformed private security guards – armed with truncheons and shotguns, as well as unarmed but uniformedly Neplum-shirted workers preventing all ingress and egress at the golf course.
Mediamen, this writer included, who went near the wall to take photos were shouted at by a matron: “Nepo property! No trespassing! Walang papasok!”
Somebody said the matron looked like one Sylvia Antonio, reportedly the Nepomuceno clan’s matriarch.
Neither golfers – averaging from 150 to 200 a day, this being the peak season – nor caddies, maintenance and administrative personnel could get in, but of course.
Worse, much worse, was the situation of those entrapped within the golf course, which, incidentally, is situated within an estate that has an operating hotel as well as residences settled in by South Korean nationals.
School-aged kids had to forego classes on Monday and the following day, barred as they were at the hastily constructed walls – there were two, by the Neplum guards.
Adults, in various stages of stress and tension, made frantic calls to the estate management and had to be reassured that everything was being done to break the siege.
The lawyer of the estate was by then in the process of seeking a temporary restraining order from the courts. A complaint at the barangay office was finally filed only late afternoon of Monday, the filer complaining that there was no one at the barangay hall to receive it earlier.
So went the impasse on the first day, January 17.
Early Tuesday, the height of the wall was raised, strands of barbed wires were put up at the road side. “Berlin Wall,” it was dubbed. Or, in keeping with the nationalities it walled on, “the 38th Parallel,” in reference to the heavily fortified demarcation line dividing the Korean peninsula.
An emergency – the mother of the Korean partner developed hypertension from the stress of being cooped inside the estate. After much pleading with the guards, she was allowed to go.
Another Korean elderly who also complained of high blood pressure and needed to buy her prescription medicine was disallowed to leave.
Soon Young-Tanhueco, married to a Filipino, phoned the Cruz office to report that food was running out in her household and she was out of cooking gas.
Food was brought to the wall for her but the guards disallowed entry.
Three staffers from the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) who sought to intervene in behalf of the entrapped Korean elderly and children were told by the security guards to first seek approval from the Neplum office near Holy Mary Memorial Park.
It was way about 5 p.m. that the CHR finally escorted the elderly, Soon, four children and two male hotel guests out of the estate.
The image of the Koreans passing by the concrete wall then by the barbed wire fence evoked images of another era – Korean refugees crossing into the South during the war.
A distraught Soon broke into sobs and hugged her mother-in-law tightly.
“A short-haired white complexioned woman shouted at us: ‘This is war’,” Soon told media and others waiting outside the wall. “She said we could never get out, that the wall would stay until Cruz is dead.”
“In all my life, never was I frightened this much,” she furthered.
The high drama – of Korean nationals virtually hostaged and threatened, walled in, held virtually incommunicado, plus the spectacle of concrete walls rising overnight on a road, would have made one hell of a story the international media would have lapped up.
It would have approximated the frenzy that attended the Luneta bus hostage-taking tragedy.
A short call to the Associated Press where I used to work, to the BBC or CNN would have brought the Royal Garden Golf and Country Club siege to international focus.
But then, what would that have wrought to Angeles City and the whole country? Yet another black eye to the global image of the Filipino.
It was good that in this instance, patriotism took precedence over journalistic duty among the local media. So, an international incident aborted from happening there.
And yes, past 8 p.m. on Tuesday night, the walls came tumbling down – by virtue of a TRO and a writ of demolition issued by RTC Executive Judge Angelica Paras-Quiambao served by a Sheriff Sicat.