Retired cop kidnapped in Nueva Ecija

CABANATUAN CITY — A retired police sergeant, who served as an intelligence officer at Camp Olivas in Pampanga, was abducted by five heavily armed men in his onion farm in Sto. Domingo, Nueva Ecija last Thursday morning, police said.

Senior Superintendent Alex Paul Monteagudo, provincial police director, said the victim, retired SPO3 Esteban Bravo, 56, father of councilor Jackiri Bravo, was snatched at about 6 a.m.

Monteagudo said the elder Bravo’s abductors, clad in military uniforms and brandishing M-16 Armalite rifles, arrived on board a silver-gray Kia Besta van with license plate CPT-951.

Bravo reportedly tried to escape upon seeing the armed men, but one of them fired at him, hitting him in the buttocks.

They then dragged him to their van and sped off toward the Science City of Muñoz where the vehicle was later found abandoned.

From Muñoz, Monteagudo said the group boarded a white car and drove toward Guimba town.

He said one of the suspects has been identified as a certain Boyet Andres of Sta. Clara, Cuyapo town.

Police found bloodstains and four empty M-16 shells in Bravo’s onion farm in Sitio Saranay, Barangay Baloc.

Probers were still looking into the motive behind Bravo’s abduction.

Senior Inspector Gregorio de Leon, Sto. Domingo police station commander, said the kidnappers rented the Kia Besta van from Edgardo and Perlita Jose of Cuyapo for P2,900 for a supposed trip to the Manila airport.

Upon reaching the Guimba town, the group, however, commandeered the vehicle and blindfolded its driver, Allen Demetrio, and later released him unharmed.

"Hihiramin lang namin itong sasakyan pero isasauli din namin (We will just borrow your vehicle, but we will return it)," Demetrio quoted one of the kidnappers as saying.

Bravo reportedly plans to run for barangay chairman if the barangay elections would push through this October.