BASILAN PROVINCE (Mindanao Examiner / Sept. 5, 2013) – Gunmen have seized two teachers working for a Catholic charity foundation in the restive province of Basilan in the Muslim autonomous region in southern Philippines, officials said on Thursday.
Officials said the gunmen raided the staff house of the Charity Children Foundation in the village of Tairan in Lantawan town late on Wednesday and abducted Frederick Banot and Cherden Masong.
Members of the Special Forces, who were alerted by the abductions, pursued the raiders, but did not catch up with them.
“The victims were forcibly taken by the gunmen and dragged them to waiting speedboats and fled under cover of darkness,” Capt. Jefferson Somera, a spokesman for the 1st Infantry Division, told the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
He said Brig. Gen. Felicito Virgilio Trinidad, a regional army commander, also ordered troops to track down the hostages and their captors and to help police authorities in providing or securing charitable workers in the province.
No individual or group claimed responsibility for the abductions, but Abu Sayyaf rebels and bandits are actively operating in the province and have been previously blamed for many kidnappings for ransom and killings.
The foundation helps in various programs aimed at uplifting the lives of ethnic Badjao and Yakan tribes in Basilan, one of five provinces under the autonomous region.
Both the provincial and regional governors and the local town officials have not issued any statement about the raid and the unstable peace and order in Basilan, just several nautical miles from Zamboanga City. (Mindanao Examiner)
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