Military 'exhausting efforts' to recover abducted Sulu school head

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine military is “exhausting all efforts” to rescue the abducted school head in Sulu, one of the poorest provinces in the country wracked by security issues, the Western Mindanao Command said on Thursday.

Five gunmen barged into Liang Elementary School on Thursday morning and abducted Marjorie Abdul, the school’s head teacher, Capt. Jo-Ann Petinglay, the public information office head of the military’s Western Mindanao Command, said in a statement.

Petinglay said that the military was already coordinating with the police and the provincial government to intensify pursuit operations, identify the school head’s captors and trace their hideouts.

“The Western Mindanao Command is exhausting all efforts and means to track down the captors and rescue the hostage, identified as Marjorie Abdul, head teacher of Liang Elementary School, who was forcibly taken by five armed men in the school premises at 9:30 in the morning today (Thursday),” Petinglay said.

Westmincom also condemned the “kidnapping ploys” by lawless groups in the province, known as the lairs of the notorious Abu Sayyaf terror group which in the past abducted foreigners and Filipinos and beheaded some of them.

“Rest assured that we will sustain our operations in coordination with law enforcement agencies,” she said.

Sulu, an island province in southern Philippines, has been plagued by kidnapping and terror activities in the past.

Security issues have spooked investors and stunted development in the region, already one of the poorest in the Philippines.

Just last week, a Muslim teacher was recovered in a village in Patikul, Sulu. It’s not known if the teacher’s family paid ransom to secure her freedom.

Petinglay said that “intelligence resources” were already being utilized to obtain information on the kidnappers, adding that pursuit operations have already been launched by all operating units under Joint Task Force Sulu.