5 countries issue travel warnings

BACOLOD CITY-- At least five countries have warned its citizens against traveling to southern Negros, including Dumaguete City.

Ireland, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Canada posted the advisories on their government websites recently.

The countries did not say what prompted the advisories but the Provincial Tourism Office said they were issued after an ambush in Cauayan town last week where a Swede and Brazilian were wounded.

The ambush was carried out by New People’s Army (NPA) guerrillas who apparently were targeting a police convoy.

The foreigners’ car was either ahead or behind the police convoy when the rebels opened fire.

Provincial Supervising Tourism Operations Officer Cristine Mansinares said in an interview yesterday some foreign tourists have canceled their bookings or cut short their visit to tourist sites in southern Negros, days after the ambush.

Mansinares said she received reports from tour operators in Manila of foreign visitors canceling their trips to the Philippines, especially to Negros Occidental.

The advisory of Canada, posted on www.travel.gc.ca, said foreigners were “subjected to extremely harsh treatment executed by their captors” when they were kidnapped.

It said that while the incident threat is significantly high in Mindanao, there were also threats of kidnapping in southern Negros Island, Siquijor, Palawan and other provinces situated in the Sulu Sea.

Britain’s travel advisory was more extensive , saying the kidnapping threats were “particularly acute” in Mindanao, the Sulu archipelago, Palawan and Central Visayas region, including Siquijor and Dumaguete, and extend to coastal resorts, dive sites, and offshore areas in the nearby waters of the Sulu Sea and the Celebes Sea where the incidents mostly happened.