This dire warning is addressed to the Catholic Church: The Abu Sayyaf plans to kidnap any priest and any nun in Sulu province to belie allegations by the government that it is a “spent force.”
The information comes from a source who has penetrated the Abu Sayyaf.
My source told me that some members of the Abu Sayyaf will rape the hapless nun whom they will take hostage no matter her age or how she looks.
“Sir Mon, they raped every woman they kidnapped in the past without exception,” said my source.
By coming out with the warning, this columnist aims to preempt the bandit group’s sinister plan.
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The Abu Sayyaf, which was involved in the kidnapping of Caucasian and Malaysian guests of a hotel resort in Malaysia in April 2000, is allegedly under the protection of a local official in Sulu.
The bandit group also kidnapped three members of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) who visited Sulu several years ago.
Although no ransom was paid for the ICRC members, they were nonetheless given token money for the victims’ “board and lodging” while in captivity.
But this time around, the bandit group would insist that ransom be paid for the priest and nun who will be kidnapped.
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Mary Jane T. Tolentino, a Metrobank depositor, complains that somebody else withdrew from her ATM account on July 13, 14 and 15, 2011.
“The fraudulent withdrawals from my account were probably done abroad while I was here in the Philippines,” says Tolentino, a retiree.
Metrobank, she says, refuses to take responsibility for the unauthorized withdrawals.
Tolentino showed me a copy of the response to her complaint by Crisostomo P. de Guzman, Metrobank’s vice president and head of the service management division.
In the letter, De Guzman said, “There was no invalid PIN try before the questioned withdrawals. This simply means that the person who made the transaction knew the PIN code.”
Following De Guzman’s line of argument, only a Metrobank insider would have known Tolentino’s PIN code.
Tolentino says she never lent her card to any of her relatives, so it’s not possible that the unauthorized withdrawals were made by her relatives.
A copy of the bank’s “savings/time statement history” says the withdrawals were made by “CIRRUS SVCHG.”
Cirrus is a worldwide inter-bank network operated by MasterCard.