Duterte to send Cabinet members, not warships, for Filipino hostages in Libya

Instead of deploying frigates to Libya, President Rodrigo Duterte has formed a task force composed of Cabinet members to secure the Filipino workers held hostage by pirates, Malacañang said on Tuesday.

Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said the task force would be led by Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano to coordinate with the government of Libya.

“The status right now is we have formed a high-level all-Cabinet member team to deal with the Libyan government and help in the effort to recover two of our countrymen who were kidnapped together with a South Korean national,” Roque said in a press briefing.

Other members of the Cabinet task force are Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III, Presidential Adviser on Overseas Filipino Workers concerns Abdullah Mamao, and Mindanao Development Authority Secretary Datu Abul Khayr Alonto, Roque said.

Roque disclosed that the abductors of the three Filipinos and a South Korean national—who were employees of an ongoing water project in Libya—were armed rebels.

“The problem that complicates this latest case of kidnapping is that the kidnappers are not state agents of Libya,” Roque told reporters.

“They are militias who are engaged in an armed conflict also with the Libyan government, and that is why it was deemed more prudent to work with the Libyan government to see what the demands are,” he said.

Earlier, Duterte announced that he would send warships to Libyan waters to help South Korea secure the hostages if the pirates decide to hurt them.

The President made the announcement after a South Korean warship was deployed to the African country.

The hostages were abducted amid a water shortage in Libya, Roque said.

“Water in Libya is considered somehow equally valuable as oil, and that’s why the Koreans—when they said everything has to be done to secure the release—were actually exerting pressure to the Libyan government, given the fact that they have threatened to leave the ongoing water project in Libya which was deemed to be very important in Libya currently,” Roque said.   /vvp