NORTH COTABATO -- Suspected Moro rebels reportedly asked for P2 million in exchange for the release of a 23-year-old nephew of Mayor Loreto Cabaya of Aleosan town.
The kidnappers, who are believed to be members of a breakaway group of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, abducted Saturday dawn Romy Cabaya, 23, third year student of the Southern Christian College in Midsayap, North Cotabato.
The military said the kidnappers, who are followers of Ameril Umra Kato, founding leader of Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, thought the victim was Mayor Cabaya’s son.
The mayor appealed to the kidnappers to free the victim unharmed, while the military is still investigating the incident.
Cotabato Provincial Police Director Cornedlio Salinas told Sun.Star SuperBalita Davao that they still have to verify reports that the kidnappers have raised the ransom demand.
“Wala pay klaro ang naasoy nga taho sanglit padayon pa silang nag-imbestiga (The report is still unconfirmed. Investigation continues),” he said.
“Even if they asked for ransom, we could not pay since Romy’s family is poor, that’s why he works as house help to have money for tuition,” Mayor Cabaya said.
The victim attended a barangay fiesta and was headed home past midnight Friday on board a passenger motorcycle called “habal-habal” when gunmen on board motorcycles and a pick-up truck flagged down his vehicle in Barangay Crossing Dualing, Aleosan.
At gunpoint, Romy was transferred to a waiting pick-up truck and sped toward Barangay Dungguan, an outskirt village known as kidnappers’ and lawless elements’ hideout.
The Midsayap police joined the Aleosan police in pursuing the kidnappers. En route to Barangay Dualing, the policemen found the pick-up truck torched by the suspects to mislead them.
The driver of the motorcycle who was with the victim during the incident reported that the suspects thought Romy was Jason, son of the mayor.
Mayor Cabaya is currently the president of the Mindanao League of Municipalities.
North Cotabato Deputy Governor for Muslim Affairs Edris Gandalibo has been tasked by the Crisis Management Committee to negotiate with the kidnappers.
Colonel Leopoldo Galon, spokesperson of the military’s Eastern Mindanao Command, said those responsible for the kidnapping of Romy are followers of Kato whose area of operation is Datu Piang, Maguindanao, an adjacent town of Aleosan, North Cotabato.
Kato has been wanted for the atrocities he allegedly led in 2008 against five towns in North Cotabato situated along the borders of Maguindanao when the Supreme Court junked the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain. (Edgardo Fuerzas/PNA/Sun.Star SuperBalita Davao/Sunnex)
