PAGADIAN CITY (Mindanao Examiner / Mar. 1, 2014) – Police forces recovered an abducted 19-year old student following a daring escape from his captors in the southern Philippine province of Zamboanga Sibugay.
Stephen Tan, who was seized February 27 in Pagadian City in Zamboanga del Sur province, told police that he managed to escape by jumping into a cliff while he was being led by his captors to a village in Diplahan town.
Tan said he was blindfolded throughout his ordeal and managed to escape only after his three captors told him to remove his cover. He said they were walking on a trail at the edge of a cliff near a river and he jumped from the steep rock and ran as his captors chased him until they lost him.
Tan said he hid in the grass and later found a house and sought help from its owner Clarito Ferrarin. He said borrowed the man’s cell phone and contacted his father to say that he escaped from his abductors.
The victim’s father phoned the town’s mayor Cris Jose to seek help about his son. The politician then coordinated with the local police force headed by Inspector Raul Cortes and recovered Tan in a shanty where he was waiting for rescuers.
Chief Inspector Ariel Huesca, a regional police spokesman, said Tan, an engineering student at the Southern Mindanao College, was driving his car in Pagadian City when gunmen nabbed him in the village of Gatas.
He said police and military forces were tracking down Tan’s abductors in the town. (Mindanao Examiner)
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