Scottish man's Pinay wife seized in Zambo Sibugay

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines  – Armed men seized the wife of a Scottish national in Ipil, Zamboanga Sibugay Sunday night, the second kidnapping of a woman married to a foreigner in three months, the military said.

The victim, Luisa Galvez Morrison, 34, was snatched in her beauty salon in Barangay Magdaup, Ipil town at around 7:20 p.m. Sunday, said Lt. Col. Randolf Cabangbang, spokesman of the Armed Forces’ Western Mindanao Command.

Cabangbang said the armed men dragged Morrison to a waiting yellow multi-cab and sped off toward the village of Timex.

Pursuing police and military forces recovered the getaway vehicle, which the kidnappers torched before heading, authorities said, toward the village of Katipunan together with Morrison.

Cabangbang said authorities have yet to determine if the kidnappers belong to any rebel group or “lost command” operating in the Zamboanga Peninsula.

But Chief Superintendent Elpidio de Asis, regional police director, said, “Our police and military forces have been tracking down all the leads on this kidnapping case.”

De Asis said Morrison recently returned to Ipil to open the beauty salon. Her husband worked for an oil company in Malaysia.

So far, there has been no ransom demand, he said.

In July, Gerfa Yeatts Lunsmann, a Filipina married to a US citizen, was seized along with her 14-year-old son and a nephew on an island off Zamboanga City. Their fate remains unknown.