Kidnappers free trader after payment of ‘board and lodging’

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY—A businessman kidnapped here on September 19 was released Saturday after payment of “board and lodging,” authorities said yesterday.

Chief Inspector Reynante Reyes, head of the Regional Special Operations Group (RSOG), said in a text message that Manuel Boniao was released past 7 p.m. on Saturday.

Reyes said kidnappers brought Boniao to his home on board a motorcycle. Mayor Vicente Emano confirmed Boniao’s family paid board and lodging expenses for his freedom. Board and lodging have become euphemisms for ransom.

Mayor Emano refused to divulge more details, saying police were investigating.

“We are happy that Boniao was released unharmed. The family has paid for the board and lodging of Boniao,” Emano said in a radio interview.

The Boniao family also refused to comment on the kidnapping but the family spokesperson, former Balingasag town Mayor Felix Borromeo, said Boniao has no idea where he was taken by his kidnappers as he was blindfolded during his captivity.

A family member, who requested anonymity, said Boniao’s captors also kept him in handcuffs all the time and that he was warned against talking to police and journalists.

In Mati City, Davao Oriental police said two members of the Abu Sayyaf were arrested in connection with the kidnapping of 20 people, mostly tourists, in an island resort in Palawan 10 years ago.

Supt. Jose Carumba, Southern Mindanao police spokesperson, identified the arrested suspects as Abdul Aziz Kunting, alias Robert Tan, and Akmed Kunting, alias Jason Tan.

A team of soldiers and policemen captured the two in Barangay Matiao past 2 p.m., Carumba said.

The arrests came as a result of a tip to police on the presence of the two suspects in the village.

Carumba said the two have been “moving around Southern Mindanao to elude arrest.”

The suspects allegedly took part in the Dos Palmas Resort kidnapping in Palawan on May 27, 2001, but “have gone inactive and laid low” after the kidnappings, Carumba said.

“The public has nothing to worry about” other Abu Sayyaf members rescuing the two, said Carumba. He, however, refused to say where the two suspects are being kept.

At least 22 soldiers and five hostages, including two Americans, were killed in the yearlong hunt for the Dos Palmas kidnappers. JB R. Deveza and Frinston L. Lim, Inquirer Mindanao