What scares RP Mt. Everest team?

Members of the Philippines’ first ever expeditionary team that will attempt to climb Mt. Everest in the Himalayas are raring to take on the world’s highest and most dangerous peak but are balking at going even near a Mindanao mountain for a decidedly good reason: kidnap-for-ransom gangs.

Transportation Undersecretary Arturo Valdez, the leader of the 23-member team, said plans to stage a "tropical climb" of a mountain in Mindanao next week or early October has been put on hold because of concerns for the team’s safety.

"We just want to be careful. You never know, there might be kidnappers out there. We might be kidnapped. We don’t want that to happen," Valdez told The STAR.

He refused to identify the mountain which they plan to climb as part of their training or "tune-up climbs."

Valdez is currently coordinating with local government and military officials in the area for security arrangements.

Everest rises 29,800 feet in the Himalayan range, which straddles India and Nepal.

Nine members of the team reached the summit of a 20,000-foot mountain on the Indian side of the Himalayas, known simply as KR-5, during the team’s two-week basic and advanced mountaineering training at the Western Himalayan Mountaineering Institute.

Valdez said they are currently arranging for KR-5 to be named Mount Pinoy.

Prior to their training in India, the team climbed Mt. Guiting-Guiting in Romblon and Mt. Kanlaon in Negros Occidental.

Mindanao is home to a decades-long Muslim insurgency waged by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, as well as the al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf guerrillas.

Although the Abu Sayyaf claims to be fighting for an independent Islamic fundamentalist state, the government dismisses it as a group of bandits for kidnapping foreigners for ransom.

Washington considers the Abu Sayyaf as a terrorist group for kidnapping three Americans in 2002. Peruvian-born Guillermo Sobero was executed by the gunmen while Martin Burnham, a Christian missionary, was killed during a military rescue attempt the following year. His wife, Gracia, made it to freedom.