‘ Pentagon’ founder nabbed in Kudarat

COTABATO CITY — A suspected leader and founder of the "Pentagon" kidnapping gang is now detained at the provincial jail here following his arrest earlier this month in Sultan Kudarat town in Maguindanao.

Alleged Pentagon financier Ibrahim Sacandal, alias engineer Jun Yap and Jun Sarat, was arrested April 2 on the strength of a warrant issued by acting Judge Francisco Rabang Jr. of the Cotabato City Regional Trial Court.

Rabang ordered Sacandal arrested for his alleged involvement in the kidnapping of Filipino-Chinese businessman Vicente Ramos Yu in September 2000 in Cotabato City.

After being taken to Camp Siongco in Maguindanao for investigation, Army intelligence agents moved Sacandal to the Maguindanao provincial jail following a commitment order issued by Judge Emmanuel Badoy of the same court.

Intelligence sources said Sacandal was driving a motorcycle along the national highway in Barangay Salimbao on his way to Cotabato City when he was stopped by agents of the Army’s 12th Intelligence and Security Unit and the National Anti-Kidnapping Task Force of the Philippine National Police.

Sacandal’s role in the Pentagon kidnap gang was revealed by his arrested co-leader Faizal Marohombsar, who said they agreed on the use of the codename Pentagon at a meeting in Davao del Sur between June 20 and Aug. 12, 2001, Army intelligence said. Aside from the two, the other founders of the gang were Kamid Udasan, Kaliden Ompao and Rasul Abe Ingad.

This was the time the gang held a group of Chinese engineers and Filipino-Chinese guide Edwin Lim.

Lim was freed on Sept. 27, 2001, while engineer Zhang Zhong Quiang and another Chinese hostage were killed during an earlier military rescue attempt.

Zhang Zhong Quiang worked at the Japan-funded Malitubog-Maridagao irrigation project in Carmen, North Cotabato when he was taken at gunpoint.

Sometime in November 2001, the Pentagon took custody of Italian Catholic priest Fr. Giuseppi Pierantoni after his kidnappers handed him over to Pentagon leaders known only as Tangloy and Makaumbao.

The Pentagon is believed to have kept the 44-year-old Pierantoni somewhere in Kapatagan, Lanao del Sur until his release earlier this month.

Gunmen snatched the Catholic priest on Oct. 17, 2001 while he was having dinner in a convent in the coastal town of Dimatiling in Zamboanga del Sur.

Witnesses told police the kidnappers dragged Pierantoni into a pump boat which sped towards the Lanao provinces as they indiscriminately fired their guns in the air.

Police gave chase but the pump boat of the kidnappers was too fast for their launches, witnesses added.

Pierantoni’s six-month ordeal ended last April 8 when Special Action Force troops found him at about 3 a.m. in the jungle in Upper Tungawan at the boundary of Zamboanga del Sur and the newly created province of Zamboanga-Sibugay.

Pentagon gangmen were said to have abandoned Pierantoni, who was immediately flown to Manila and presented to President Arroyo and the media in Malacañang the following morning.

Pierantoni was later turned over to the Italian consul general and the officials of the Sacred Heart Congregation in Parañaque, to which he belongs.

On Nov. 12, 2001, the Pentagon gang snatched Jimmy Yap Jr., his seven year-old son of Filipino-Chinese trader Jimmy Sr. who operates a hardware store in Pikit, North Cotabato.

Police said the kidnappers, clad in fatigues and armed with .45 pistols, barged into Jimmy Jr.’s classroom at the Pikit Central Elementary School and dragged him into a getaway car.

Two days later, on Nov. 14, emissaries of the kidnappers brought Jimmy Jr. to the office of North Cotabato Gov. Emmanuel Piñol, who turned him over to his parents.

Piñol said Pikit Mayor Farida Malingco was among those who helped convince the kidnappers to release Jimmy Jr. without payment of ransom.

Pentagon gangmen also kidnapped the daughter of a rice mill owner in Cotabato City on Nov. 5, 2001 and released her four days before Christmas on Dec. 21, 2001, also without any ransom being paid.

Five gunmen snatched 33-year-old Martina Martin from her family’s rice mill at about 4 p.m. on a Sunday and dragged her into a waiting car which sped towards nearby Midsayap town.

Martina was freed at about 2:30 a.m. on Dec. 21 through the intercession of the North Cotabato police director and the Army’s 6th Infantry Division.

Vincent Bahilidan, a 13-year-old son of a businessman in Cotabato City, escaped from the clutches of the Pentagon last March 24 after being held for less than a week.

Bahilidan was snatched some two months after Dr. Rosemarie Agustin was kidnapped by the Pentagon from her clinic in Talayan, Maguindanao.

Agustin was reportedly freed after her family paid a P3 million ransom.

Last March 30, hotel owner Carlos Belonio of General Santos City was rescued in Sarangani province by Army troops after 52 days in Pentagon captivity.

Jae Keon-yoon, the South Korean who was kidnapped with Belonio, remains a captive.

Army troops captured seven Pentagon gangmen last April 6 after a firefight in Dumalinao town in Zamboanga del Sur and separate raids in Sultan Kudarat and North Cotabato.

Last March 10, Tacurong City policemen shot and killed key members of the Pentagon gang in a running gunbattle in Barangay Gansing.