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THE
Armed Forces has asked the US for a P3-C Orion
surveillance plane to help track down the group that
kidnapped Italian priest Fr. John Carlo Bossi,
Malacañang said on Monday.
Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said that Gen.
Hermogenes Esperon Jr., Armed Forces chief of staff,
together with Director General Oscar Calderon, National
Police chief, gave President Arroyo an update on the
efforts to recover Bossi after the posthumous awarding
ceremony for US Peace Corps volunteer Julia Campbell in
Malacañang.
“He [Esperon]
said, ‘Ma’am, we even dispatched an Orion airplane to
conduct an aerial surveillance,’ because [of] the report
[that] was he was taken out of the place where he was
kidnapped on a boat that sailed away from Zamboanga
Sibugay,” Ermita said.
Esperon
said in a separate interview that the US government is
providing technical assistance to help recover Bossi,
who was abducted by armed men in Payao, Zamboanga
Sibugay on Sunday.
“The
Armed Forces is coordinating with the police … the
troops in the area are following it up. Air Force planes
have also joined the search … the US is also helping,
giving technical assistance, so we hope to get
something,” he said.
Esperon
said among the suspects is a former member of the Moro
Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), but expressed
confidence that the matter would not affect the peace
negotiations with the secessionist group.
Ermita
doubted the involvement of the MILF leadership in the
abduction, in view of the forthcoming resumption of
peace negotiations.
“The
MILF leaders want to live up to their commitments in the
peace talks. Why would they do this now when peace talks
are about to resume?” Ermita said.
He added
that the MILF is expected to help recover Bossi, as part
of its earlier agreement with the government involving
the apprehension of criminal elements entering known
MILF territories.
The MILF
had earlier helped secure the release of four people
abducted in Pikit, North Cotabato, including German
metals trader Thomas Walraff and his Filipino wife.
Military
forces are now combing an area in Zamboanga Sibugay, as
they intensified effort to rescue Bossi from his
kidnappers.
Lt. Col.
Bartolome Bacarro, Armed Forces spokesman, said that
troops from the Army’s 102nd Infantry Brigade are
scouring the area of Tungawan in the province following
reports that the victim and his abductors were
proceeding to that area.
“There
were initial reports that they were seen boarding two
pump boats and moving toward Tungawan,” Bacarro said.
The
military has yet to hear from the abductors of Bossi or
any ransom demand.
Bossi,
57, member of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign
Missions, was on his way to barangay Bulawan to say Mass
when he was snatched by at least 10 armed men.
Bacarro
said that as members of the Army’s 102nd Brigade are
conducting manhunt operations, members of the peace and
order council in Zamboanga Sibugay were set to hold an
emergency meeting to find ways on how they can help in
the effort to free Bossi.
The MILF,
meanwhile, tagged Abu Sayyaf gunmen as the kidnappers of
the Italian priest in Zamboanga Sibugay, on Sunday.
Mohagher
Iqbal, who heads the MILF peace panel, told reporters on
Monday that al-Qaeda-affiliated Abu Sayyaf bandits and
not MILF fighters were behind the abduction Bossi, 57,
of
Milan,
Italy.
Iqbal
said that Abdusalam Akiddin, alias Commander Kiddie, the
alleged head of Bossi’s captors, is a known follower of
slain Abu Sayyaf leader Khadafi Janjalani, contrary to
military claims.
“If the
captor’s leader is Kiddie, definitely it’s [the] work of
the Abu Sayyaf. Kiddie has long joined the Abu Sayyaf.
My counterpart in the peace negotiation has also asked
about the identity of this person. I told him that
Kiddie is a member of Abu Sayyaf and has been linked in
previous kidnappings in the Zamboanga peninsula,” Iqbal
said.
“Upon
receipt of the official report about the abduction, the
MILF representatives to the ad hoc Joint Action Group
acted on the matter for the possible rescue of the
victim. Right now, MILF fighters in the area are closely
monitoring the incident,” he added.
Iqbal
said the MILF received information that Bossi was taken
by Kiddie to an island between Zamboanga and Basilan.
Bossi
was snatched in barangay Bulwan, Payao, Zamboanga
Sibugay, where he served as parish priest, at around
9:35 a.m., according to the military.
The Abu
Sayyaf is responsible for several kidnapping incidents,
one of the most celebrated of which was the snathcing of
several tourists on a resort island off Borneo in 2000
and the kidnapping of tourirsts from the Dos Palmas
resort in Palawan in May 2001.
Among
those snatched in the
Palawan kidnapping were the American missionary couple Martin and Gracia
Burnham.
Maj.
Gen. Ben Dolorfino, chief of the government’s
representatives to the ad hoc Joint Action Group,
however insisted Bossi’s kidnappers were members of MILF
lost command.
“Our
[government forces’] effort is concentrated in Sultan
Naga Dimaporo town in Lanao del Norte where the Italian
priest was taken by his captors. We are determining the
exact location so we can contain it,” Dolorfino said.
“There
was no ransom demand. And the name of another MILF
commander has surfaced. He is Jack. Right now, the
troops in the area believe that the captors belong to
[the] MILF lost command,” Dolorfino added.
The
kidnapping of Bossi brought to two the number of Italian
priests kidnapped in Mindanao in six years.
On
October 17, 2001, Fr. Giuseppe Pierantoni was abducted
in his parish, Our Lady of Fatima, in Dimataling,
Zamboanga del Sur, by armed men believed to be members
of the notorious Pentagon kidnap-for-ransom group.
He was
released on April 8 the following year. It was not
disclosed if ransom was paid.
--With R. Acosta, B. GArcia
Jr. and R.M. Maitem |
