Agusan education official surfaces

BUTUAN CITY — Missing since Feb. 2, an Agusan del Sur education official finally surfaced at noon yesterday in Tagum City, and police authorities insisted that he was not kidnapped as earlier feared.

Both Caraga police director Alberto Rama Olario and Agusan del Sur police chief Ramon Espiritu confirmed that 57-year-old Danilo Magcanam, non-formal education supervisor of the Department of Education, has returned and was undergoing medical check-up in Tagum before going home to Trento, Agusan del Sur.

Magcanam’s wife Ruth had expected her husband to be back last Saturday, as he claimed in a text message to her.

The STAR tried to contact Mrs. Magcanam, a public elementary school teacher in Trento, several times yesterday but to no avail.

In earlier text messages, Magcanam told his wife that four armed men snatched and forced him to board a black L-300 van.

He added that the New People’s Army was trying him for a rape case filed against him last year, but that he would be back on Feb. 8.

Mrs. Magcanam has belied the rape accusations, saying her husband was on Dinagat Island in Surigao del Norte attending a seminar when the alleged rape took place.

She added that professional jealousy and intrigues might have motivated the filing of the charges against her husband.

Meanwhile, Olario said the disappearances of Magcanam and Aglipayan priest Melvin Resurreccion were mere cases of "missing persons," not kidnappings.

Resurreccion went missing last Jan. 23 but surfaced at the Iglesia Filipina Independiente church in Cagayan de Oro City last Thursday.

Olario said Resurreccion just went on a "recreational trip" to Cagayan de Oro but failed to inform his superiors.