Kidnappers free 2 remaining captives

COTABATO CITY – Kidnappers freed past 8 p.m. Friday the two remaining captives they snatched along with six others a week ago at Datu Paglas, Maguindanao.

The victims, Marvin Roy Fruto, 22, and Anna Marie Supe, 29, were set free by their captors at a rice farm in Barangay Tadulman in Sultan Sa Barongis, an interior town also in Maguindanao.

Superintendent Danilo Bacas, spokesman of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao police, said the kidnappers were forced to release the victims and escape to the nearby Liguasan Marsh after sensing that pursuing policemen and soldiers under the Army’s 604th Brigade were closing in.

“They could have realized the threat of figuring in an armed confrontation with the pursuing government operatives so they decided to escape and leave their victims in an open field,” Bacas told The Star. 

In a text message sent by Central Mindanao police director Chief Superintendent Felizardo Serapio, citing the report submitted by SKPPO director Senior Superintendent Suharto Tocao, said the two remaining kidnap victims (Marvin Roy and Anna Marie) were rescued at around 9:30 p.m. at the vicinity of Barangay Gadungan in Sultan Sa Barongis town.

“Due to intense pressure from the pursuing operatives of Maguindanao and Sultan Kudarat police officers, the kidnappers were forced to leave the victims in a remote part of Sultan Sa Barongis town in Maguin­danao,” Serapio told The STAR in a long distance interview.   

The kidnappers, said to be led by Mayangkang Saguile, who was implicated in the abduction of more than 30 wealthy traders in Central Mindanao in recent years, have earlier asked for a P10 million ransom for Fruto and Supe. 

Fruto and Supe, along with six companions, all employees of a cosmetics distribution firm based in Davao City, were from Tacurong City on board a red pick-up truck when the kidnappers, positioned at both sides of an isolated portion in Datu Paglas of the Tacurong-Davao Highway,  blocked their path, commandeered their vehicle and spirited them to nearby S.K. Pendatun town. 

The four companions of Fruto and Supe were released by their abductors two days after the incident with the condition they would return to bring the P10 million ransom. 

“No ransom was paid to the kidnappers simply because the police and military did not allow it since the relatives of Fruto and Supe cooperated fully in working out their rescue,” Bacas said.