ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines—Three government workers have been abducted by armed men in Sulu and Lanao del Norte, officials said Tuesday.
The first abduction took place in Iligan City around 2:30 p.m. Monday when aremed men waylaid teachers Rene Somagang of Barangay Villaverde and Keno Sanchez of Barangay Tubod who were returning to the Limonsodan Bayug Falls Elementary School in Barangay Rogongon.
Councilor Moises Dalisay Jr., chairman of the Iligan City Council’s public order and safety committee, said authorities were not able to immediately respond to the abduction because Rogongon is the city’s remotest village.
He said a search-and-rescue team composed of soldiers and policemen has been dispatched but gave no other details.
Councilor Ariel Anghay, chairman of the council’s committee on education said the authorities suspect that the perpetrators were “personalities involved in illegal logging, who lost their income after the declaration of total log ban” in the wake of the destruction and death left by Tropical Storm Sendong.
In Sulu, unidentified gunmen abducted Rosalyn Kiram, 54, a midwife, while she and several other health workers were returning to Jolo after manning a mobile clinic in the town of Patikul, said Chief Superintendent Mario Avenido, chief of police in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
Avenido said investigators had yet to determine the motive for the abduction and the identity of the perpetrators.
Senior Superintendent Antonio Freyra, Sulu police chief, said the gunmen actually seized six health workers after flagging down their mobile clinic but released five of them more than an hour later, keeping Kiram hostage.
Freyra said Patikul municipal officials immediately convened the local Crisis Management Committee to deal with the latest abduction.
Kiram was the second midwife kidnapped in Sulu. Last August, Evangeline Taverisma, 57, of the Indanan Rural Health Unit was snatched while on her way home. She was freed in October after the kidnappers were paid “board and lodging fees.”