Zamboanga Sibugay trader snatched

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines  – A local businessman was seized while a civilian was wounded last Tuesday when armed men flagged down a motorboat at sea off the coast of Siay town in Zamboanga Sibugay, police said.

The latest kidnapping victim, Reynaldo Drapiza, 58, together with a number of passengers, was sailing off the coast of Laih in Siay town when the armed men, on board another pumpboat, intercepted them, said Superintendent Jose Bayani Gucela, spokesman of the Zamboanga Peninsula police.

The armed men then seized Drapiza, but before escaping, shot and wounded one of the passengers, a certain Charles Navarro, Gucela said.

Col. Santiago Baluyot, commanding officer of the Army’s 102nd Infantry Brigade, said pursuit operations were ongoing against the kidnappers.

Drapiza, who operates passenger and cargo motorboats, and rice mills, is the sixth kidnap victim within three months in western Mindanao.

Police and military forces have yet to recover Babeth Gomonit, 55, and her 10-year-old grandson who were snatched in the nearby Pagadian City last Oct. 30.

Basilan authorities are still negotiating the release of another kidnap victim, 60-year-old Rose Baranda, with her kidnappers, who are suspected to be Abu Sayyaf and Moro Islamic Liberation Front rebels, who have reportedly reduced their ransom demand to P1 million.

Police and military forces in Sulu, meanwhile, are waiting for the go-signal to launch rescue operations for two kidnap victims – Toshio Ito alias Amer Mamaito Katayama and Filipino-Chinese student Kenn Klefford Lao, who were snatched separately.

Ito, 63, has been in captivity since last July 16 when he was seized in Pangutaran, an island town off Jolo. Lao, 21, was snatched outside his school in Jolo last Oct. 7.

A police official said there has been no word from Ito’s kidnappers, while the captors of Lao have reportedly lowered their ransom demand from P5 million to P3 million.

The spate of kidnappings has prompted the military to deploy Special Forces and Scout Rangers in Basilan and to form the Special Operations Task Force-Basilan to hunt down terrorists and kidnappers.

Army Chief Lt. Gen. Arturo Ortiz personally launched the deployment of 13 speedboats codenamed “Condor” for the 4th Special Forces to patrol the sea lanes of Basilan against the Abu Sayyaf and kidnapping groups.