All Agusan hostages released

PROSPERIDAD, Agusan del Sur , Philippines – Tribal gunmen led by Ondo Perez released yesterday all 42 hostages they had been holding for four days in a mountainous area of Agusan del Sur, provincial Vice Gov. Santiago Cane said.

The hostages were released at past 5 p.m. after more than three hours of negotiations at Nerian’s Place, a restaurant owned by the family of this town’s mayor, Nestor Corvera, where Perez and his brother Michael personally met their nemesis called Datu Calpit, a rival Manobo tribal leader whom Perez wanted to disarm.

The hostages, ranging in age from 17 to 62, were to be taken to a holding area and then to a government hospital for medical check-ups, Cane said before he went to meet them.

Cane, Provincial Social Welfare Officer and chief negotiator Josefina Bajade, some provincial officials and other members of the negotiating team held a closed door meeting at Nerian’s Place after which a decision was made by Perez and his group to release the remaining captives.

After the negotiations, the group proceeded to Sitio New Maasin, Social Hall in Barangay San Martin where a simple signing ceremony was witnessed by residents.

It was not learned where the group of Perez headed but police officials here said the armed groups of Perez and Datu Calpit were to be brought to the Agusan del Sur Provincial Police Office.

Datu Calpit earlier surrendered bringing in five firearms, three carbine rifles, a .38 cal pistol and one M-16 Armalite rifle.

Former Agusan del Sur governor Adolph Edward Plaza said everyone was happy that the crisis was finally over.

Other Agusan del Sur Provincial officials headed by Gov. Maria Valentia Plaza lauded efforts exerted by members of the crisis management team.

Although there were many questions left hanging, mostly legal ones, the overall impression here was that everybody was relieved the crisis was over.

Demands for animal sacrifices

Yesterday morning, a snag hit the negotiations when the tribal gunmen refused to hand over the hostages as the hostage drama took a bizarre twist with demands for animal sacrifices, said Alfredo Plaza, a government spokesman for the negotiating team.

About 400 soldiers and police were on standby since yesterday morning around the gunmen’s mountain hideout on the strife-torn southern island of Mindanao.

In an effort to placate the kidnappers, negotiators agreed to bring tribal leaders the sacrificed animals as part of a ritual demanded by Perez, in overnight talks.

Senior Superintendent Nestor Fajura, chief of operations in CARAGA, also said Perez claimed that five of the 47 hostages are his “errand runners,” not hostages.

The kidnapping was part of a wave of violence that has swept the southern Philippines, where Muslim and communist insurgents mix with warring clans, pirates and corrupt officials.

The gunmen led by Perez, former communist guerrillas and members of the mountain-dwelling Manobo tribe, raided a school in a small farming village in the Agusan valley region of Mindanao on Thursday, taking 75 hostages.

The kidnapping centered on a tribal conflict between rival leaders in the unstable region.

Twenty-eight hostages, including 18 children, were later freed and Perez had said the rest would follow on Sunday. But negotiators said one major hitch was Perez’s demand for the arrest of members of the rival faction.

One rival tribesman, Joel Tubay, who has an outstanding arrest warrant for murder, remained in hiding and had refused to turn himself in.

As part of the deal, the government held talks with Manobo tribal leader Datu Calpit, considered a senior member of a rival Manobo family of ex-communist guerrillas involved in a bloody war with the kidnappers.

Perez has demanded that criminal charges against him be dropped, that Calpit’s bodyguards be disarmed and that another tribal leader Tubay be arrested.

It was unclear if the latter two demands would be granted.

Both Perez and Tubay have outstanding arrest warrants for murder over killings which have their roots in a long-standing dispute over property, Plaza said.

President Arroyo lifted martial law over Maguindanao on Saturday after eight days of emergency rule triggered by the massacre last month of 57 people in the province.

The massacre was allegedly carried out by leaders of a Muslim clan that had ruled the area since 2001.

Islamist militants on the southern island of Basilan are holding three hostages after beheading another captive on Wednesday.

The Mindanao region is full of bandits, communist guerrillas and Islamic rebels. Powerful local families maintain large private armies and feuding among them is common.

Negotiators had previously said the hostage-takers had demanded that murder cases against them be dropped.

Clan wars, known locally as “rido,” are common in the south.

Studies funded by the Asia Foundation and the US Agency for International Development in 2007 found there had been more than 1,200 clan feuds in the south since the 1930s, killing nearly 5,000 people and displacing tens of thousands.

Meanwhile, a special team from the police and military is now hunting down the armed group of Tubay, Fajura said. With Cecille Suerte Felipe