ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / July 10, 2008) – Muslim gunmen have freed late Thursday four kidnapped workers of a rural electric company in Basilan island in the southern Philippines, police said.
Police said the four hostages were released at around 8 p.m. in Al-Barka town, a known stronghold of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front rebels. Police and military linked the MILF and the smaller Abu Sayyaf group in the June 26 kidnapping of the workers, all employees of the Basilan Electric Cooperative Inc.
The freed hostages - brothers Alberto and Emilberto Singson; Paul Herowig and his brother Birin – were released to emissaries of Basilan deputy governor Alrashid Sakalahul in the village of Magcawa, said Senior Superintendent Salik Macapantar, the island’s police chief.
“We don’t know if there was ransom paid for their release, but the kidnappers freed all the hostages unharmed to government emissaries,” he told the Mindanao Examiner. The gunmen freed one hostage, Ronnie Tansiung, in Tuburan town last month where the five had been kidnapped while reading electric meters.
The kidnappers originally demanded one million pesos, but raised their demand to two million pesos after private negotiators sought the release of the hostages.
The kidnappers have threatened to execute the four workers remaining hostages unless ransom is paid. Police tagged MILF leader Usih Muslim and Abu Sayyaf commanders Nurhasan Jamiri and Furuji Indama as among those who seized the workers.
Basilan island Governor Jum Akbar, head of the local crisis management committee, designated her deputy to negotiate for the safe release of the hostages, said Macapantar.
Macapantar said he ordered police commandos to prepare to hunt the kidnappers by day break on Friday. “We will launch a pursuit operation by day break to neutralize the Abu Sayyaf and MILF rebels involved in the kidnappings,” he said.
A faction of the Abu Sayyaf last month kidnapped an ABS-CBN television presenter Ces Drilon and her cameramen Jimmy Encarnacion and Angelo Valderama, including a Muslim university professor Octavio Dinampo, in nearby Sulu province.
They were freed a week later in exchange for a huge ransom. Philippine military chief Alexander Yano said the Abu Sayyaf, which was originally fighting for the establishment of a strict Islamic state in Mindanao, had been reduced to being a bandit group. But the United States tagged the Abu Sayyaf group as a foreign terrorist organization with links to the al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiya. (Mindanao Examiner)
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