ZAMBOANGA CITY—Jema’ah Islamiyah (JI) terrorists and Abu Sayyaf bandits have freed the teacher they seized after killing a priest in Tawi-Tawi, a ranking police official said on Wednesday.

Chief Supt. Joel Goltiao, Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) police commander, said the teacher, Omar Taup, was freed on March 18 after the alleged payment of “board and lodging” fee to his captors.

“He [Taup] has been released,” Goltiao said. “Allegedly, his family paid the amount of P200,000 for his release,” Goltiao added.

Earlier, Taup’s captors have demanded ransom of P1 million in exchange for his freedom. The ransom demand was later reduced to P350,000.

Goltiao said Taup was abandoned by his captors at the wharf of Bongao town, the capital of Tawi-Tawi province.

Taup’s release came three months and three days after he was taken hostage by a group of JI terrorists and Abu Sayyaf bandits in a botched kidnapping attempt on the campus of Notre Dame High School on Tabawan Island, South Ubian town in Tawi-Tawi.

The bandits reportedly planned to kidnap Oblates of Mary Immaculate priest Jesus Reynaldo Roda in the evening of January 15.

Roda, however, tried to resist the kidnapping, prompting the bandits to shoot him. They took Taup instead.

A former Abu Sayyaf member has told officials at the Western Mindanao Command (Wesmincom) that Umar Asmanan, who is better known for his alias, Dulmatin, was the one who led the January 15 raid on Notre Dame High School campus.

The Armed Forces Wesmincom information officer, Maj. Eugenio Batara Jr., said pursuit operations against Roda’s killers continue.

With Taup’s release, the Abu Sayyaf bandits still has one hostage left.

Maria Rosalie Lao, a rice trader, who was seized on January 28 in barangay Kakuyagan, Jolo, Sulu, is still in the hands of the bandits.

Lao was about to enter her house when five Abu Sayyaf bandits seized her in the afternoon of January 28.

Military and police officials said that Lao was seized by the group of Abu Sayyaf leader Al-bader Parad who was involved in the Sipadan kidnapping in 2000.

Military forces are still pursuing the remaining Abu Sayyaf leaders and followers hiding in the hinterlands of Sulu province.

Solon seeks probe into Napocor’s ‘overpriced’ coal purchases

A MILITANT legislator is seeking an investigation into the alleged awarding of a P320-million coal-supply contract by the National Power Corp. (Napocor) to a local dealer which appeared to be nonexistent.

SENATE investigators are poised to pursue next week their stalled inquiry into alleged anomalies attending the $329-million national broadband deal (NBN) with Zhong Xing Telecom Equipment Co. Ltd. (ZTE)

TWO soldiers were killed, while six others were wounded in a series of encounters with communist New People’s Army (NPA) guerrillas in the triboundary of Abra, Mountain Province and Ilocos Sur, the military reported on Wednesday.

ZAMBOANGA CITY—Jema’ah Islamiyah (JI) terrorists and Abu Sayyaf bandits have freed the teacher they seized after killing a priest in Tawi-Tawi, a ranking police official said on Wednesday.

THE Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) held on Wednesday a river forum to tackle the problems and solution to the looming water crisis as a result of the continued degradation of rivers and other bodies of water in the Philippines.

SPEAKER Prospero Nograles said on Wednesday the House will vote for the third and final reading the bill establishing the Philippines’ territorial baseline even if it has some defects, which he claimed could be remedied by the bicameral conference committee.

SOME 200 undocumented Filipino workers stranded in Saudi Arabia, and Jordan, including those who stayed under the Al-Khandara bridge in Jeddah, are set to be repatriated early April.