“We are willing to give up to them [alleged Korean mafia in the Philippines] our business, just free our father and let him live his life freely.”

This was the statement made by the eldest daughter of South Korean businessman arrested by agents of the Bureau of Immigration (BID) as she pleaded with Department of Justice (DOJ) Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre 2nd to ensure the life and limbs of his father, Kang Tae Sik, 74, president of K & L Jinro Phils. Inc.

‘MANHANDLED’ Jung Hee Kang shows a picture where her father Kang Tae Sik was being arrested on March 23 by Immigration agents, whom she said over the weekend “manhandled” her dad who had been implicated in the kidnap-slay of fellow South Korean businessman Jee Ick Joo, who was killed by police last year. Kang reportedly has lived in the Philippines for almost 40 years. PHOTO BY MIKE DE JUAN

Jung Hee Kang made the appeal after reviewing the CCTV footage capturing how the Bureau of Immigration [BI] agents “manhandled” his father in a “Gestapo fashion” raid in his Makati City (Metro Manila) office last March 23, where the old and sickly businessman was treated as a hardened criminal, forcibly handcuffed and dragged downstairs and loaded onto a waiting van.

“If indeed this Korean syndicate wanted our business, we are willing to give it to them, just free our father, and let him live in peace his few years in this world,” Junghee said, citing what happened to fellow South Korean businessman, Jee Ick Joo, who was kidnapped and murdered by members of the Philippine National Police late last year.

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“Spare my father. We have been doing legal business here for so many years as we love your country,” Jung Hee Kang added while crying during the weekly forum at Kapihan sa Annabels in Quezon City, showing a copy of a video grab where her father was forcibly taken by Immigration agents.

She said she is willing to convince her father to give up their business as a distributor of a popular Korean liquor for his freedom.

Kang’s name was mentioned by Aguirre during a Senate hearing last February 23 on the Jee kidnap-slay case and testified that an unnamed Duterte administration official told him that a certain Kang Tae Sik is the head of a “Korean mafia” possibly involved in the case.

The Korean Embassy, however, strongly denied any derogatory activities of Kang and challenged Aguirre to substantiate his remarks with concrete evidence.

The Justice secretary last week reversed a decision of his predecessor and now Supreme Court Associate Justice Alfredo Benjamin Caguiao that granted Kang’s appeal to stop the Immigration bureau from deporting him.

JING VILLAMENTE