Ma, son seized in Pagadian City

ZAMBOANGA DEL SUR, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / Nov. 1, 2010) – Unidentified gunmen seized a mother and her son after inside their house in Pagadian City in Zamboanga del Sur province in Mindanao, military reports said Monday.

It said the woman Babet Gomonit and son Cekim were seized late Saturday and that the family car used in the escape had been recovered the next day on a village in the town of Tukuan also in Zamboanga del Sur.

No individual or group claimed responsibility for the latest abduction. But there were suspicions that Moro rebels could be involved in the abduction.

Last year, rebels also kidnapped an Italian missionary Father Michael Sinnot inside his house in Pagadian City and freed him a month later in Zamboanga City after private negotiators paid huge ransom.

Kidnappings-for-ransom has become a lucrative business for rebels in Mindanao with most of the collected monies used to purchase weapons in the troubled region in the southern Philippines. (With a report from Becky de Asis)