Zambo kidnap gang head falls

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines – Government security forces captured a kidnap gang leader, also wanted for killings and robberies, in Payao, Zamboanga Sibugay before dawn yesterday, police said.

The suspect, Elmas Guilingan, was cornered in his safehouse at the border of Barangays Guilingan and Fatima in Payao town by combined elements of the Philippine Center for Transnational Crime, police intelligence unit, and the Army’s 44th Infantry Battalion, according to Senior Superintendent Jonathan Perez, Zamboanga Sibugay police director.

Perez said Guilingan was involved in the 2011 kidnapping in Kabasalan town of businessmen Joel Endino and Reynaldo Drapeza who were eventually freed after ransom was paid.

Guilingan, according to Perez, was positively identified as the one who led the ambush on Chief Inspector Ariel Huesca, then the police chief of Ipil town, in Kabasalan.

Huesca, now the spokesman of the regional police, escaped the ambush unharmed.

Guilingan’s group was also tagged in robberies, holdups and car thefts in Ipil, Kabasalan, and Imelda towns.