Gunmen who seized a bus in the southern Philippines have released all 13 of their hostages but escaped authorities after a two-day hijacking drama, a regional military commander said yesterday.
The three hijackers abandoned a second vehicle that they had been riding in with their hostages and fled on foot in the town of Lakewood, 775km south of Manila.
The hijacking took a bizarre twist earlier yesterday when the gunmen accepted an offer from Pagadian Roman Catholic Bishop Emmanuel Cavajar to drive them to a new location in exchange for releasing some of the hostages after crashing the bus.
Cavajar and four of the hostages were left behind in Lakewood while the nine others were freed on the road.
The three men, armed with an automatic pistol, an Uzi sub-machine gun and a hand grenade, boarded a Rural Transit bus near the Sapang Dalaga, apparently with the intention of robbing the passengers.
passengers freed
However, the men panicked when they passed a military checkpoint and instead hijacked the vehicle. They later crashed the bus into a ditch in the town of Labangan.
As the police and military cordoned off the area, the gunmen demanded a new vehicle to bring them to Pagadian to meet with their "commander."
It was then that Cavajar offered to drive the hijackers if they freed some of their hostages.
After striking a deal with the gunmen, Cavajar struck out for Pagadian with the hostages packed in the back of his truck, which was being trailed by several police vehicles. Some of the hostages were released on the road or told to jump from the back of Cavajar's truck.
But instead of going to Pagadian, the gunmen ordered vehicle to Lakewood where they escaped.
The local police director, Chief Superintendent Prospero Noble, said authorities were questioning the freed hostages on the identities of the gunmen but said that he thought the hijackers were just "bandits" who botched their robbery plans.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
RSS