Cotabato kidnapping foiled; suspect killed

NORTH COTABATO, Philippines – A suspected kidnapper was killed and three of his alleged accomplices were arrested when they tried to snatch a drugstore owner in Midsayap town on Sunday.

Superintendent Reinante de los Santos, chief of the Midsayap municipal police, said Monalita  Sedenio, 73, was riding a pickup truck on her way home, along with a driver, when the suspects flagged them down, commandeered their vehicle and sped away.

A brief encounter ensued as policemen blocked the kidnappers, resulting in the death of Jelon Pasandalan, a resident of nearby Pikit town.

Pasandalan’s cohorts, Digu Bagkal and Mohammad Pagayao, were later cornered at a nearby village by pursuing policemen and angry villagers.

Bagkal and Pagayao later led policemen and soldiers belonging to the Army’s 7th Infantry Battalion to their hideout in an interior barangay in Midsayap, where they nabbed the group’s alleged leader, Adam Guimalon Sansaluna.

Army intelligence sources said Sansaluna is believed to be a member of a faction of the Moro National Liberation Front loyal to Nur Misuari.

“We are now trying to determine their real group affiliation,” Delos Santos said.

The foiled kidnapping followed the rescue last week of a manager of a Manila-based jobs placement firm, Milagros Abu Hussin, who was taken by four men in Datu Odin Sinsuat town in Maguindanao.

Hussin was on her way to Cotabato City from Sultan Kudarat province, along with prospective applicants for employment in the Middle East, when the kidnappers blocked an isolated stretch of the Cotabato-General Santos Highway in Barangay Makir in Datu Odin Sinsuat, ordered her to disembark from their vehicle and forced her into a waiting car.

The kidnappers were cornered by responding policemen and armed villagers in another barangay, but managed to escape.