ZAMBOANGA CITY—Eleazar Gumera, a male midwife kidnapped in Lamitan City in Basilan 11 days ago, escaped on Saturday night, walking and swimming to freedom as his captors slept, he told police.
Chief Supt. Felizardo Serapio Jr., head of the Western Mindanao Directorate for Integrated Police Operations, said Gumera was now under the care of the Marine Battalion Landing Team 7 at Campo Uno village in Lamitan.
“I waited for my two captors to fall asleep. When they were already in deep sleep, it was about 10 p.m., I inched casually away from the makeshift hut where they had put me in,” the 47-year old Gumera told the police investigators.
Not knowing where he was, Gumera walked for six hours on a small road that led to a shoreline. Braving freezing waters, he said, “I swam and swam until the sky became clear and a lone fisherman on a pump boat saw me and helped me.”
He requested the fisherman to bring him to the village of Bato in Lamitan where he told police and Bato Barangay Chair Tatuh Macrohon of his escape.
Chief Insp. Rolando Democrito of the Lamitan police, who relayed Gumera’s statement to the Philippine Daily Inquirer, said that after Gumera was kidnapped on Jan. 28, he was taken to the mountains in Akbar town.
Democrito said the shoreline the midwife mentioned was at Barangay Semut, also in Akbar.
Dr. Vincent Yu, Lamitan health officer, expressed relief after hearing about Gumera’s freedom.
After the kidnapping, the Lamitan City Health Office had decided to stop sending medical personnel in the area.
Muhammad Ajul town mayor Talib Pawaki said the series of military operations since Feb. 2 might have forced a group of kidnappers holding Janette Delos Reyes, Freires Quizon and Rafael Mayonado, teachers of Landang Gua Integrated School in Zamboanga City, to free their victims.
The teachers were kidnapped on Jan. 23 and were brought to Muhammad Ajul town in Basilan.
Two other kidnapping victims remain in captivity—Leah Patris, a microfinance worker of the Kasanyangan Community Development Foundation Inc. based in Maluso town who was kidnapped on Feb. 3, and a 9-year-old boy who was abducted on Jan. 31.
