2nd Pentagon man falls

CAMP SIONGCO, Maguindanao — The courier of ransom money of the Pentagon kidnapping syndicate was captured in Sultan sa Barongis, Maguindanao yesterday, the gang’s second key member to fall to military hands in three days.

Maj. Gen. Roy Kyamko, the 6th ID’s commanding general, said the arrested Pentagon member, Commander Nasser Pinagayao, was responsible for arranging ransom payments from their captives’ kin.

Pinagayao, also known as Guialuson Guiamelon, was bagged less than 24 hours after combined elements of the 6th ID, the 301st Infantry Brigade and the 2nd Special Forces Battalion arrested the Pentagon’s second highest leader, Commander Bantulingan Minanding, after an hour-long gunbattle in Ba—rangay Tugal, Sultan sa Barongis town.

Minanding is known as a trusted hatchet man of Pentagon’s slippery leader, Tahir Alonto, who now carries a P2-million prize on his head.

Sultan sa Barongis officials said Minanding and Pinagayao were actually together when soldiers chanced upon them at about 6:10 a.m. Thursday.

Villagers spotted the two and their cohorts and immediately alerted the nearest Army detachment. They opened fire at the responding soldiers, triggering the running gunbattle.

Pinagayao tried to elude arrest by hiding in a cornfield about a kilometer away from the scene of the clash. Farmers saw him the following morning and reported his presence to patrolling members of the Army’s Special Forces.

After a 30-minute chase, soldiers subdued Pinagayao, who gave himself up without a fight. He yielded a handgun, five live rounds of B-40 rockets and a dozen unspent M-79 projectiles.

The Pentagon was tagged as responsible for Sunday’s abduction of Martina Martin, 33, whose family owns a rice mill, in Libungan, North Cotabato.

The notorious group was also behind the earlier abductions of four Chinese nationals and their interpreter in Maguindanao and North Cotabato.