Kidnapped school owner's body found?

MANILA, Philippines - Manila police officers are coordinating with their counterparts in Sorsogon province to exhume a burned body to determine if it is that of the owner of a preschool who was kidnapped last Oct. 19, an official said yesterday.

Manila Police District (MPD) officer-in-charge Senior Superintendent Alex Gutierrez said they will compare the dental records of Reynaldo Aguilar, owner-director of the Heidelberg Pre-School in Sta. Cruz, to that of the body.

The Aguilar patriarch, together with school caretaker Tony Austria and a 10-year-old boy, was allegedly kidnapped by a neighbor, Aurelio Esidera.

Austria was found confined in a hospital in Northern Samar, while the boy was unharmed and under the care of the parish priest of Saint Peter and Paul Cathedral in Calbayog City, Samar.

Aguilar remains missing and police are looking into reports that a charred body was recovered in Matnog, Sorsogon. A quantum pendant necklace was also recovered, but Aguilar’s son, Ren, could not confirm if the necklace is the same one worn by his missing father, according to Gutierrez.

Chief Inspector Rayan Ador, the MPD’s anti-carnapping section head who recovered Aguilar’s Ford Focus (ZEF-884) near the area where the charred body was found, is coordinating with Chief Inspector Elcid Roldan, the intelligence officer of Sorsogon police, for the exhumation of the body.

Austria told police that Esidera, his neighbor at the ASL Building in Sta. Cruz, robbed Aguilar, hogtied him and the boy and drove off with Aguilar’s car in Samar province.

While traversing a highway in Samar, Esidera shot Austria in the neck and left him to die on the road.

Ador told The STAR that Esidera has been sending surrender feelers through his aunt, Aleta Rosales, a former mayor of Catarman, Samar.