ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / Jan. 24, 2009) – Kidnappers holding three government teachers on Saturday demanded P6 million ransoms in exchange for the safe release of the hostages, the victims families said.
Kidnappers have allowed the hostages to phone their families and to tell them to raise the money. “They are asking P6 million for all the hostages or two million pesos for each of them. Where are we going to get the money to pay them? We are poor,” a brother of one of the hostages said.
The hostages told their families that they are being held on a mountainous area of Basilan island, just several nautical miles south of Zamboanga City, where they had been kidnapped on Friday.
Four gunmen intercepted a motor boat carrying 10 teachers in the middle of the sea off Zamboanga City and seized the trio. The teachers, Freires Quizon, Janette delos Reyes and Rafael Mayorada, were returning to Zamboanga City from Sacol island when they were intercepted shortly before 8 a.m.
Authorities said the government has a strict no-ransom policy and ruled out payments of ransom to the kidnappers.
No group claimed responsibility for the abductions, but police and military previously blamed the Abu Sayyaf and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front for the spate of kidnappings in Zamboanga City and Basilan island.
But copycat attacks had also been carried out by criminal gangs from Basilan victimizing innocent civilians in Zamboanga City in an effort to raise money from ransom collected for the purchase of weapons and to finance future kidnappings. (Mindanao Examiner)
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