Monday, June 09, 2008

Sayyafs Seize Journalist, 3 Others In Southern Philippines

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / June 9, 2008) – Abu Sayyaf militants have seized a Filipino television journalist and two cameramen, including a Muslim university professor in the southern Philippine island of Sulu, police said Monday.

Police said Ces Drilon and her cameramen and their companion Octavio Dinampo were abducted in the village of Kulasi in the town of Maimbung. Drilon’s team arrived in Sulu on Saturday from Zamboanga City, said Supt. Julasirim Kasim, the provincial police chief.

“We received reports that the four were abducted by the Abu Sayyaf led by Albader Parad,” Kasim told the Mindanao Examiner.

He said Drilon’s group, from the television giant ABS-CBN, was believed taken to the hinterlands of Indanan town. Dinampo teaches at the Mindanao State University and is said to be helping Drilon in her coverage. The identities of the two cameramen were not immediately known.

“There is no demand yet for ransom,” Kasim said, adding, Sulu Gov. Sakur Tan convened the Crisis Management Committee to address the situation.

“Governor Sakur Tan is very worried over the safety of the victims and we are doing everything to locate them,” Kasim said.

Drilon’s group is billeted at the Sulu State College hostel in Jolo town where they took two rooms and left on Saturday afternoon after ordering foods good for 20 people, the local police chief Insp. Usman Pingay.

“We don’t know what really happened and why Drilon went without security to Maimbung,” he said in a separate interview.

A hotel staff said he saw Drilon hurriedly left and even asked her where she was going. “She was really in a hurry and I even asked her where they were going and Ces Drilon only replied that they would just be nearby. They never came back since Saturday.”

ABS-CBN television did not give any statement about the abduction. But Drilon’s group was the second from the television network to be kidnapped in Sulu in the past eight years – reporter Maan Macapagal and her cameraman Val Cuenca were also kidnapped on the island while working on exclusive news on the Abu Sayyaf.

Independent journalist Arlyn dela Cruz was also kidnapped in Sulu while covering the Abu Sayyaf. Another photojournalist Gene Boyd Lumawag was shot in the head by an Abu Sayyaf militant while shooting the sunset in Sulu several years ago.

The Abu Sayyaf had also seized foreign journalists covering the group’s kidnapping of 21 Asian and Western holidaymakers from Sabah. Most of those kidnapped were freed in exchange for ransom.
(Mindanao Examiner)

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