Workers release engineer seized over wage dispute

COTABATO CITY — A group of Filipino workers at a British-funded bridge project in Lanao del Sur freed yesterday a Filipino engineer they had abducted over a salary dispute, police said.

The engineer, Jimmy Macusi, a consultant to the Sallam bridge-building project funded by the British government, was released near the town of Mala—bang at 6 a.m. yesterday after an understanding was reached with the project contractor over outstanding wages, police officials said.

Macusi’s release had led to confusion earlier when police wrongly announced over local radio that an Italian Roman Catholic priest, Giuseppe Pierantoni, held by a Muslim guerrilla group in the same area, had been freed.

"What we have is engineer Jimmy Macusi, not Fr. Pierantoni," Senior Superintendent Ali Akbar Bangcola, Lanao del Sur police director said, clarifying the earlier report.

The regional police command had said on radio monitored here that the foreign priest had been recovered and was en route to Manila.

"The initial report we got was that they got Pierantoni," said a police spokesman, acknowledging the mistake.

Police in the area later said the victim they recovered was indeed Macusi and not Pierantoni.

Bangcola said Pierantoni was held in the same area by another group, the Pentagon kidnap-for-ransom gang which the US government has blacklisted as a "terrorist" organization.

Gunmen seized the priest at his parish church in Dimataling, Zamboanga del Sur last Oct. 17.

Last Tuesday, the Church released a recorded message from the Italian priest in which he assured colleagues and relatives he has not been harmed.

The priest had expressed his wish to be freed before his 45th birthday today.

Police said Macusi was snatched by his own workers, mostly relatives of a notorious Maranaw leader of the Pentagon, while he was about to leave their project site in Barangay Timbangan, Pagayawan town. He was abandoned hours later.

Chief Superintendent Acmad Omar, Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao police director, said the engineer’s kidnappers abandoned him in a secluded area apparently after sensing that policemen had surrounded their lair while the mayors of three towns were negotiating his release.

Citing initial feedback, Omar said Macusi’s workers apparently protested the non-payment of their wages for seven months now.

A Maranaw ustadz (religious leader) claimed that at least four of the kidnappers were known relatives of Faisal Marohomsar, the Pentagon leader in Lanao del Sur.

Marahomsar, who carries a P3-million prize on his head, was linked to the recent spate of abductions in the province, including Pierantoni’s.

Abu Sayyaf guerrillas, meanwhile, are still holding a US missionary couple, Martin and Gracia Burnham, and Filipina nurse Deborah Yap hostage on Basilan island. — John Unson, Lino de la Cruz and AFP