ZAMBOANGA CITY (Mindanao Examiner / Feb. 22, 2013) – Suspected Abu Sayyaf members on Friday freed a kidnapped restaurant owner in the southern Philippine town of Jolo after six weeks in captivity, police said.
Police said Edgar Fabella, 42, was released near the Jolo pier at around 10 a.m. “Mr. Fabella was released in Jolo town at around 10 in the morning,” Inspector Ariel Huesca, a regional police spokesman, told the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
He said it was not immediately known whether ransom was paid to the kidnappers in exchange for Fabella’s freedom. “We don’t know if ransom is paid for his release,” Huesca said.
Fabella was kidnapped by gunmen on January 11 from his small roadside restaurant on a coastal village in Zamboanga City and escaped on a motorboat.
His family did not give any statement about the release.
In December, suspected Abu Sayyaf kidnappers also released on ransom a school principal, Flordeliza Ongchua, 49, after more than two months in captivity in Jolo town.
Ongchua was kidnapped on November 13 in her house in Zamboanga City’s Labuan village, several miles from where Febella was seized. 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. (Mindanao Examiner. With a report from Ely Dumaboc)
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