Marine products trader Gertrudes Tan, 50, eluded her captors in a coastal village in Maimbung, Sulu last Monday night, said Lt. Gen. Roy Kyamko, chief of the Armed Forces’ Southern Command.
Kyamko said Tan drifted into the sea using a small plastic jug as float until fishermen found her at about 2:30 a.m. the following day.
The fishermen brought her to the Maimbung town proper where she took a passenger jeepney that brought her to the capital town of Jolo. There, elements of Task Force Comet and Marines manning a checkpoint helped her.
Tan, who was abducted while on her way to church on Siasi Island last April 13, showed signs of trauma when she stepped out of a Nomad plane that fetched her from Jolo. Kyamko escorted her.
Clad in a yellow blouse and black pants and wearing slippers, she wept upon seeing her family at the Edwin Andrews Air Force Base here.
The military brought her to Sulu Bishop Antonio Lampon before she was presented to the Army’s 104th Infantry Brigade for debriefing.
Kyamko, however, said Tan’s debriefing had to be postponed because she was suffering from trauma and was getting "very hysterical."
Tan’s captors initially demanded a P5-million ransom.
Regional Army chief Col. Alexander Yapching did not say if any ransom was paid for Tan, but last week, a relative of hers was shot dead in Jolo after handing over P700,000 to the kidnappers.
The Abu Sayyaf is an extremist group that has been kidnapping Christians and foreigners in Mindanao for over a decade and holding them for ransom.
It has been blamed for a series of deadly raids and bombings in the south as well as the murders of two American hostages in the last two years.
Both Washington and Manila have linked the group to the al-Qaeda terror network of Osama bin Laden. — With wire reports