ZAMBOANGA CITY (Mindanao Examiner / July 20, 2014) – Abu Sayyaf militants have freed two of three social workers they snatched in Talipao town in the southern Philippine province of Sulu, police said on Sunday.
Sulu police chief, Senior Superintendent Abraham Orbita, said the couple Nurhati and Mark Sicangco were released on Saturday afternoon by their captors in the village of Danag in Patikul town and fetched by their relatives and brought to the house of the local vice mayor. It was unknown if ransoms were paid for their safe release.
Orbita said they fetched the victims and brought them to the hospital for a routine medical examination before returning home. “They are okay and reunited with their family. There is an ongoing operation to search for the remaining hostage,” he told the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
He said the fate of the remaining captive Roberto Saputalo is still unknown, but the kidnappers had earlier freed Lerna Jurah. The four social workers were conducting a house-to-house survey on the government’s anti-poverty program for the Department of Social Welfare and Development when armed men seized them in the village of Upper Sinumaan in Talipao town.
It was unknown why kidnappers targeted the social workers, who were active in various government programs that benefit poor Muslim villagers in Sulu. The kidnappings were condemned by provincial government officials.
There were no immediate statement from the DSWD and the mayors of Talipao and Patikul on the kidnappings, but the Abu Sayyaf is actively operating in the two towns. The Abu Sayyaf is still holding at least 10 kidnapped victims, including foreigners seized from the neighboring Tawi-Tawi province and Sabah in Malaysia. (Mindanao Examiner)
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