ZAMBOANGA CITY (Mindanao Examiner / Dec. 24, 2012) – Kidnappers have freed a Filipino school principal on Monday after more than two months in captivity in the southern Philippines.
Flordeliza Ongchua, 49, was fetched by police agents in Jolo town where she was abandoned by her captors on Monday. She was brought to a military base in Jolo and later transported by a Philippine Air Force chopper to Zamboanga City where her anxious family was waiting.
Celso Lobregat, the local mayor, accompanied by military officials, immediately held a press conference with the woman instead of bringing her to a military hospital for medical examination.
Lobregat said the media wanted to see the woman.
Journalists were told not to interview Ongchua, who was kidnapped on November 13.
Ongchua was first thought to be in Zamboanga del Norte province after the kidnappers fled on boat towards Sibuco town after seizing the woman inside her house in Labuan village.
At least a dozen gunmen barged in Ongchua’s house after failing to find their target, the village chieftain Ronald Maravilla, who is a relative of the victim.
No individual or group claimed responsibility for the kidnapping and it was not immediately known how much was paid to secure the woman’s freedom.
In 2009, suspected Abu Sayyaf rebels also kidnapped three government teachers – Freires Quizon, Janette delos Reyes and Rafael Mayorada – in Zamboanga City. And three more teachers – Jocelyn Enriquez, Jocelyn Inion and Noime Mande – in the town of Naga in the neighboring province of Zamboanga Sibugay also in the same year. (Mindanao Examiner. With a report from Ely Dumaboc)
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