Is the ASG conniving with NPA in Visayas?

CEBU, Philippines - The Abu  Sayaff  Group (ASG) maybe talking with the New Peoples Army (NPA) in a bid to pursue its mission to kidnap prominent personalities in the Visayas.

This was the statement yesterdaty of Navy Captain George Ibarra, commander of Task Force Deter based in Dumaguete City.

Ibarra did not discount the possibility of a situation where NPA  rebels will do the kidnapping and then sell their  victims to the ASG, which will in turn  demand for millions of pesos in ransom money from families of their victims.

Ibarra was hoping the situation will not reach to this point while the task force is validating and processing intelligence information about sightings of armed individuals in parts of Sta. Catalina town in Negros Oriental.

Governor Roel Degamo was informed that armed individuals—sighted earlier in Fatima and Omanod villages in Sta. Catalina—were NPA rebels who fled Bohol, after the encounter, on their way to Negros Occidental through Payaw-payawan.

Degamo—in a meeting yesterday with coastal barangay captains from Basay to Manjuyod including their mayors—said the ASG threat is not only the concern of the governor and the mayor or the law enforcers, but for everybody to unite so the province will be sealed from this groups of terrorists. (FREEMAN)