BORACAY MASSACRE: 3 FOREIGNERS, MAID KILLED AT LUXURY VILLA
MANILA, May 5, 2004 (STAR) Police and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) are hunting the killers of three foreigners, including one of Asia’s best-known art dealers, and a Filipina maid who were found hacked to death at a luxury villa on the resort island of Boracay in Aklan.
Police identified the victims as Swiss-born Manfred Schoeni, who owns two art galleries in Hong Kong, German property developer Anton Faustenhauser and Hong Kong-based British architect John Cowperthwaite. The fourth victim was a Filipina maid.
A friend of the German owner of the house found the bodies, police said.
Ricardo Diaz, chief of the NBI’s International Police division, said Faustenhauser’s relatives, who are based in Hong Kong, have sought Interpol assistance.
The German embassy in Manila said it was waiting for more information from the police.
The victims had been stabbed repeatedly and were found early Sunday at the German’s house, a towering three-story villa called Dolce Vita with commanding views of the island famed for its white-sand beaches.
Superintendent Remus Canieso, head of a special police team in Boracay, declined to confirm reports the four were killed in a robbery and said all angles of inquiry were being kept open.
He said two long-bladed knives believed to have been used in the murder were recovered from a lavatory in the house, which is built on a steep hill and considered the most luxurious villa on the island.
Canieso said the house was in disarray when police arrived, with the bodies of the three men found on the second floor while the maid’s body was found in her room on the ground floor.
Furniture had been overturned and clothes taken out of the closets making it difficult to determine if anything had been stolen, Canieso said.
Police were interviewing 25 construction workers who worked at the property, and a special investigating team had been brought to the island to probe the crime.
"Our investigators are looking into robbery as the possible motive for the killings," regional police director Chief Superintendent George Aliño told Reuters.
The construction workers, who were landscaping and working on a swimming pool, were the only people allowed in the property, he said.
"It’s an isolated place and this could be an inside job," he said. "The suspects even tried to wash away the evidence but our investigators found blood stains."
The victims were likely killed during the weekend, Aliño said.
Neighbors found the bodies after they were alarmed by the foul smell from the crime scene, police officer Russel Homicillada said.
The family of Faustenhauser was due to arrive in Boracay later yesterday and had requested the crime scene be left undisturbed.
Schoeni is known as one of the leading dealers in Chinese contemporary art with galleries in Hong Kong’s fashionable SoHo district. The Swiss millionaire also owns a vineyard in South Africa and a restaurant in Beijing.
His death sent shockwaves through the tight-knit art industry. "It’s a tragedy for the Hong Kong art world. His death will leave a great gap in the art world," said Ian Findlay-Brown, publisher of Asian Art News and a friend of Schoeni for 15 years.
Sammi Cheng, a member of staff at the Schoeni Art Gallery, said: "All of us here are very, very upset by the news. He cared very much for us employees, he was such a good boss. He was like a friend for us."
Jim Thompson, a friend of Schoeni for 10 years who had bought paintings from him, said he was a "larger than life" character.
"It’s so horrible. He’s a guy who lives life to the full. It really breaks my heart to hear the news. He’d brought some beautiful art into Hong Kong," Thompson said.
A friend of Faustenhauser, who did not want to be identified, said the expatriate community on the island in the Visayas chain was stunned.
"Boracay is a small community and every one knows one another and something like this does affect us all," he said.
He said everybody on the island knew the house on Mount Luho.
"From a distance the house, which covers three floors, looks like a red Mexican hat with a tiled roof ... The second floor, where the bodies were found, has magnificent views."
He said Faustenhauser, 69, finished the house about 14 months ago and was subdividing his one-hectare lot into building blocks. Schoeni was building a villa next door.
Boracay, a short plane and boat journey from Manila, has about 12,400 local residents, many of them Westerners who part-own some of the 124 major hotels, bars and restaurants on the island, known for its pristine beaches, scuba diving and nightlife.
Bordering the provinces of Mindoro to the northwest and Romblon to the north, Boracay has been considered relatively safe for tourists as it was some distance from the Muslim and communist rebellions further south.
Tourist officials were trying to reassure worried foreigners and residents that the holiday island, the country’s most popular tourist destination, was safe, a police officer on Boracay said.
"Most of the people and tourists didn’t know what happened last night. They found out from TV and radio and because of that, a lot of people, especially foreigners, have come to us to ask what was going on," police officer Rezie Bulanon told Reuters.
"There is no panic with regard to the killing. The area is in a residential area, on top of a hill and not in the beach area," said Jonas Palomata, guest relations officer at a Boracay resort.
Diaz said the NBI would do its best to solve the case as soon as possible to make local and foreign tourists feel safe.
One hotel owner, who did not want to be identified, said the deaths could not have come at a worse time as the island was recovering from terrorism alerts issued after the 2002 bombing on the Indonesian island of Bali.
"We have only just started to come out of a particularly bad patch and now this. It will set us back ... I think we will see many German tourists and Hong Kong tourists pulling out after this," he said.
Several countries warn their citizens against traveling to the Philippines, whose tourism industry has suffered from crime as well as from the Muslim and communist insurgencies.
At Malacañang, President Arroyo’s spokesman, Ignacio Bunye, vowed the authorities would track down the killers and said tourists should still consider the island safe. "This is an isolated incident," he said. — Cecille Suerte Felipe, AFP
Reported by: Sol Jose Vanzi
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