ZAMBOANGA CITY – Philippine military officials said the mayor of a town in Zamboanga Sibugay province near here has been kidnapped by six masked gunmen and that security forces were dispatched on Tuesday to search for the politician.
Capt. Frank Suelto, a spokesman for the 1st Infantry Division, said Mayor Gemma Adana, of Naga town, was taken by gunmen from her home in the village of Taytay Manubo late Monday.
He said the armed men dragged her out of the house to a waiting speedboat by the river and sped off under cover of darkness. “We have dispatched troops to help police forces search for the mayor,” he told the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
It was not immediately known why the police failed to detect the daring assault or if the mayor had no bodyguards at the time of the raid.
Quoting military reports, Suelto said the gang arrived in the town in three boats, but it was unclear whether the gunmen were members of the Abu Sayyaf or other rebel group.
Police said the gunmen, clad in camouflage uniform, were all wearing ski mask and escaped to the open sea.
Inspector Dahlan Samuddin, a regional police spokesman, said the mayor was with dining together with her family when the gunmen barged in the house and seized her.
“The victim was taking meals together with the entire family inside their dwelling, when suddenly three unidentified suspects, wearing camouflage uniform, armed with high power firearms appeared therein and at gun point forcibly dragged the victim towards the back portion of their house into a waiting motorized pump boat color blue and immediately sped off heading towards the high seas,” he said in a report.
Samuddin said local policemen and soldiers pursued the raiders, but failed to catch up with them.
No individual or group claimed responsibility for the kidnapping, but the province is a lair of rebel groups and criminal syndicates. (Christina Diabordo)
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