CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY, Philippines—The families of the four officers of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology taken hostage by communist rebels in Bukidnon Thursday have issued an appeal for their release.
The kidnapped BJMP personnel—Ozamiz City Jail Warden Inspector Erico Llamazares, Cagayan de Oro City Jail chief escort Inspector Murphy Tujog, Jail Officer 2 Rogelio Beguntes and Jail officer 1 Roland Bajuyo—were part of a 10-man team transporting eight convicted prisoners to the Davao Penal Farm in Davao del Norte.
Among the prisoners was New People’s Army leader Dennis Rodenas, who had been convicted of illegal possession of explosives.
The team’s two-vehicle convoy was traversing Quezon town in Bukidnon when flagged down by communist rebels posing as soldiers.
The rebels freed Rodenas but seized the four BJMP personnel. They eventually allowed the rest of the convoy to proceed to Davao del Norte.
While it confirmed having custody of the jail officers, the NPA’s Herminio Alfonso Command based in Southern Mindanao kept mum on the status of the captives—or what they were planning to do with them.
Emily, Llamazares’ wife said she was increasingly getting worried about the safety of her husband and his companions.
She urged the rebels to free her husband, whom she said, was only doing his job.
Senior Inspector Mea Lee Tujog, wife of Inspector Tujog, said the uncertainty over the fate of their husbands made them sleepless.
She said they were worried the rebels would harm the captives.
Superintendent Clint Russel Taghiris, deputy chief of the BJMP in Northern Mindanao, said the captives would not serve any purpose to the rebels. “Please let them go,” he said in an appeal aired on a local radio station.
Major Eugene Osias, spokesperson of the Army’s 4th Infantry Division here, said soldiers and policemen were working side by side to locate the rebels and possibly rescue the captives.
Osias declined to provide additional information on the probable location of the rebels.