ZAMBOANGA CITY (Mindanao Examiner / Dec. 18, 2013) – Armed men raided a government school on Wednesday and abducted a teacher in the southern Filipino port city of Zamboanga, police said.
Police said at least 10 gunmen on two motorboats swooped down on Limaong Island and seized Cathy Mae Casipong, who teaches at the Sibogtok Elementary School.
“The teacher was forcibly dragged by the armed men who fled on two motorized boats,” Chief Inspector Ariel Huesca, a regional police spokesman, told the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
He said police and military forces were immediately deployed to pursue the gunmen and their hostage. “There is an operation going on,” he said.
The motive of the abduction is still unknown, but it occurred barely a week after gunmen abducted a fish trader, Cynthia Caboverde, in Ipil town in the neighboring province of Zamboanga Sibugay, and village chieftain Cecilia Alas-as in Sibuco town in Zamboanga del Norte.
Police arrested one of Caboverde’s abductors Adznar Chiong, and filed charges against him and his cohorts, one of them Nurhassan Jamiri, a notorious Abu Sayyaf leader based in Basilan province, just several nautical miles south of Zamboanga.
The woman, a resident of Dipolog City, just came from her fishing boat with new partner Edrin Agca in Magdaup village where she distributed salaries of her fishing crew members. The gunmen also seized the woman’s bag containing P800,000 and then dragged her to a waiting motorized boat. Caboverde’s partner was left behind by the abductors for a still unknown reason.
Alas-as, village chieftain of Paniran, was seized by three masked men who barged inside her house and dragged her to the shore where a boat was waiting.
Police forces tried to chase the gunmen, but failed to catch up with them, however, soldiers from the 10th Infantry Battalion captured one of the abductors – Jasser Siddik – who was positively identified by the victim’s son and that criminal charges have been filed against him and his three companions Yusop Maliki, Rolly Mahamud and Merham Jumrani who are believed holding the woman. (Mindanao Examiner)
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