Armed Forces chief Gen. Diomedio Villanueva said villagers between Barangays Bunawan and Polomolok in Colombio, Sultan Kudarat tipped off the authorities on the presence of the kidnappers and their captives.
Two companeies of 47th Infantry Battalion backed up by two MG-520 attack helicopters were sent to check the reports and stumbled on some 60 kidnap gang members around 9 a.m. in a swampy area between the two villages.
Initial reports indicated that two captives, identified as Zhang Zong-yi and Xue Zhin, ran toward the government troopers in the ensuing firefight but their captors gunned them down.
"Two of the Chinese nationals were immediately shot by the kidnappers while another was able to escape," said Army Col. Jose Mabanta, adding the running gunbattle was still ongoing as of 1 p.m. yesterday.
Mabanta identified the rescued victim as Wang Sheng-Li, who managed to escape by jumping into a 10-foot ravine covered with thick vegetation while the firefight raged.
Wang was to be brought to the Army’s 6th Infantry Division headquarters in Awang, North Cotabato. Mabanta said five of the kidnappers were killed in the firefight while there were no reported casualties on the government side.
Two of the slain kidnappers were positively identified as members of an influential Muslim family in Pagalungan, Maguindanao, according to North Cotabato Gov. Emmanuel Piñol.
Piñol heads the crisis management committee negotiating for the victims’ release.
Zhang, Xue and Wang, along with Davao City-based Filipino trader Edwin Lim, were abducted at Datu Piglas, Sultan Kudarat on Aug. 12 while delivering a P5 million ransom for Zhang’s brother, Zhang Zong Quiang.
Zhang Zhong Quiang is the operations manager of China Import Export Technologies Inc., a Chinese firm working on the P2.7-billion Malitubog-Marigadao (Malmar) irrigation project in North Cotabato.
The dam project is expected to irrigate some 12,000 hectares of riceland in Central Mindanao and is among the priority projects of the Arroyo administration.
Zhang was abducted in June by five armed men along a secluded stretch of the Cotabato-Davao Highway while he was enroute to the project site in Carmen, Cotabato from Davao City.
"Another problem is we do not know who this group is," said Mabanta, referring to the abductors reportedly led by a certain Tahir Alonto.
Alonto is said to be a leader of a lost command of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which had forged a ceasefire agreement with the government in Putrajaya, Malaysia two weeks ago.
Alonto was captured last year and detained at the General Santos City jail but was sprung from prison by his henchmen, including a certain Abu Hamsa.
Hamsa is another former MILF rebel who surrendered years earlier but turned to banditry when the government allegedly reneged on a promise to find him a job when he surrendered.
The government panel negotiating with the MILF has cleared the separatist group of involvement in the kidnapping but the military warned the MILF to control its field commanders amid reports the rebels were harassing villagers despite the ceasefire accord.
Piñol said the kidnappers, along with Zhang and Lim, were last seen fleeing toward Tulunan town in North Cotabato with more than a dozen wounded cohorts. — With reports Roel Pareño, Paolo Romero, Christina Mendez