Cotabato cops clueless on abducted businessman

COTABATO CITY, Philippines - Investigators are still clueless on the abduction here Tuesday of a businessman and his aide by gunmen riding vehicles without license plates.

The victims, Tee-Jae Tagadaya Macabalang, owner of a small computer-generated billboard graphics and signage production outfit, and his assistant, Wendell Factuan, were to meet buyers of used motorcycles in a commercial district in an uptown area but got kidnapped as they arrived at the designated meeting site.

Macabalang is also engaged in buy-and-sell of second hand motorcycles.

Witnesses said at gunpoint, the suspects herded the duo at a parked van without license plates, which sped away towards an interior area nearby.

Three of their abductors also hurriedly left using a Toyota Innova parked few meters away from the scene.

Personnel of the Cotabato City police office are still investigating on the incident.

There are talks spreading around since early Wednesday purporting that the abduction of Macabalang and Factuan could be related to an old grudge and was not a kidnap-for-ransom case.

A relative of Macabalang, who also worked in his establishment, reportedly went missing last year and was, subsequently, found dead in an outskirt here several days after his abduction.

Intelligence agents of the Army’s 5th Special Forces Battalion, who are guarding Cotabato City’s 37 barangays, are now helping the city police locate Macabalang and Factuan.