ZAMBOANGA CITY—Two workers of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) were freed by their abductors in Patikul, Sulu, on Saturday afternoon.
Freed were Agustino Sicangco and wife Nurhati, who were kidnapped on July 17.
Senior Supt. Abraham Orbita, provincial police chief, said the Sicangcos were first brought to the house of Patikul Vice Mayor Jun Tarsum in the village of Umangay, and later to the Integrated Provincial Health Office for a medical check-up.
A source, who asked not to be identified for lack of authority to speak on the matter, said the victims’ family paid P200,000 in ransom.
Nurhati is the DSWD-Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao coordinator for Talipao town. Her husband also works in the same office as a social worker.
1 more captive
The Sicangcos, along with coworkers Robert Saputalo and Lerma Jurah, were abducted by armed men led by a certain Enrile Jumayde in Talipao town on July 17.
Jurah was freed in the village of Danag in Patikul town on July 18. Saputalo remains in the hands of his abductors.
Earlier, Gov. Mujiv Hataman of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao
(ARMM) ordered the Sulu police provincial office and officials of Talipao town to locate and rescue the four social workers, who were abducted by Abu Sayyaf gunmen on Thursday.
Hataman had asked the military on the island-province to help in efforts to secure the release of the four.
The four were in Talipao to conduct a survey for the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) when they were seized by 10 armed men around 4 p.m. Thursday.
“Our report was that they were taken by Abu Sayyaf while doing their work,” Hataman told reporters here on Friday.
He said he had ordered the police and Talipao local officials to establish contact with the group that took the DSWD workers hostage.
No ransom policy
But Hataman said while negotiations would be allowed, no money will be involved.
“We maintain the government’s no ransom policy [but] we will negotiate for their release,” he said.
Chief Supt. Noel Delos Reyes, ARMM police regional director, said the Sulu police had started coordinating with local clerics there to help secure the victims’ release.
The four Tausug victims were the latest victims on a growing list of captives of the Abu Sayyaf, which raises funds for its terror operations through kidnappings.
Authorities earlier said that German nationals Dr. Stefan Viktor Okonek, 74; and Henrite Dielen, 42, had been brought to Sulu after they were kidnapped, also by the Abu Sayyaf, off Palawan in April.
The Abu Sayyaf, a ragtag band of self-styled Islamists, which gained notoriety due to its high-profile kidnappings, also continues to hold on to other foreign captives, including European bird watchers Dutchman Ewold Horn and Swiss national Lorenzo Vinciguerra. They are also keeping captive Japanese treasure hunter Mamaito Katayama.
The Abu Sayyaf continues to operate despite claims made by the military that the
al Qaida-linked group has been weakened with the deaths of many of its leaders. Julie S. Alipala and Edwin Fernandez, Inquirer Mindanao