Tribal gunmen holding dozens of people captive in a Philippine jungle received a firm warning by the government yesterday as the crisis entered a third day, officials said.
The small group of gunmen raided a school in a small farming village in the Agusan valley region of the southern island of Mindanao on Thursday and took 75 hostages, including children and relatives of their local rivals.
Twenty-eight hostages, including 18 children were later freed.
PHOTO: EPA
“I outlined to them a certain scenario that would happen if they refused to release the remaining hostages,” said local social worker Josefina Bajade, the chief government negotiator in the crisis.
She would not discuss details. Provincial government officials later met the most senior police and military officials of Agusan del Sur Province here to consider their options.
The officials gave no comment but security sources said on condition of anonymity that the use of force to end the crisis could not be ruled out.
About 400 soldiers and police have deployed in the area amid concern that the kidnappers would harm the hostages, who have been forced to sleep on the ground due to the primitive conditions there, according to government officials who visited the area.
The security sources said there were 19 kidnappers armed with assault rifles who were guarding 47 captives held in and around a hut in a clearing of a thickly forested mountain.
They said that while these people had not received formal combat training, they were convinced that the suspects would not hesitate to kill the hostages, noting that some of them have outstanding arrest warrants for clan war-related murders.
“There are 47 hostages still — 45 men and two women,” Santiago Cane, the vice governor of the province who joined the negotiator in her visit to the gunmen’s hideout on Friday, when they also delivered food.
“We will continue to negotiate in the hope of producing results,” he said.
Bajade visited the gunmen’s hideout in a mountainous area early yesterday, but returned grim-faced in mid-morning, having failed to win the release of any more hostages after two successful visits that saw the release of 28 others.
Bajade insisted that the government had not set a deadline.
Authorities have identified the gunmen as members of the Manobo tribe and said the abduction was linked to a long-running clan dispute involving another Manobo family.
Cane said the gunmen’s leader, Ondo Perez, told the negotiator he was willing to end the hostage crisis if the government arrested his local rival Joel Tubay and his armed followers, who the official said also have outstanding arrest warrants for murder.
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