‘Pentagon’ frees doctor but snatches hotelier, Korean

ZAMBOANGA CITY – Two in, one out.

Members of the Pentagon kidnap-for-ransom gang abducted yesterday a Filipino hotel owner and his companion, said to be a South Korean national, after releasing a woman physician they had held hostage for three weeks.

Carlos Belonio, owner of the Tierra Verde Hotel in General Santos City, and his Korean companion, identified only as Mr. Yung, were seized in Sarangani province while on a business trip at Sitio Takal, Barangay Penol Malisbong in Maltum town.

Authorities were informed by Belonio’s son of the abduction, and Maj. Gen. Roy Kyamko, commander of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, and Senior Superintendent Bartolome Baluyut, the region’s police chief, immediately launched a joint search and rescue operation for the victims.

"We have alerted all government forces in the area to set up roadblocks," Baluyut said.

Lt. Gen. Roy Cimatu, head of the military’s Southern Command, said Belonio’s family has not received a ransom demand yet from his abductors.

The abduction occurred hours after other members of the Pentagon gang freed 53-year-old physician Rosemarie Agustin who was abducted by five gunmen outside her home in Cotabato City on Jan. 15.

Sources in Cotabato said Agustin’s family, which owns the Cotabato Medical Specialist Hospital and a gasoline station, paid P3 million to her abductors. The military maintained that no such payment was made.

The Agustin family was initially asked to pay P10 million in ransom by the gangmen.

Local Army spokesman Maj. Julieto Ando said a brief gunfight between soldiers and the kidnappers preceded Agustin’s release.

Three kidnappers were reportedly killed in the gunfight in a marshy area near the towns of Datu Piang and Kabuntalan in Maguindanao province.

Ando said the kidnappers abandoned Agustin when they fled their hideout after sensing that troops from the National Anti-Kidnapping Task Force were closing in.

He later reported that Agustin was very weak, bruised and had blisters on her unshod feet when she was recovered before dawn at the Liguasan Marsh, a swampland often used as sanctuary by local bandit and kidnap gangs.

Cotabato Mayor Muslimin Sema said Agustin was taken home, where she is now resting and being given intravenous fluids for rehydration. She will later be invited to the Army’s headquarters in Maguindanao to be asked about her ordeal.

Sources from the police and Army intelligence units here said two groups identified with the Pentagon gang are being eyed as responsible for Agustin’s abduction.

One group is reportedly led by a certain Samad Pandita, a known henchman of the late Commander Mubarak, the bandit who pioneered kidnapping activities in Central Mindanao and was killed by the Marines in Davao del Norte in 1992.

The other group is headed by one Mayangkang Saguile, a notorious criminal included under the military’s most wanted list and has been tagged in at least 30 kidnapping-for-ransom cases here and nearby towns since the early 1990s. The military is offering a P3-million reward for his capture.

Agustin’s relatives refused to talk to the media on the ransom payment. However, anti-kidnapping chief Deputy Director General Hermogenes Ebdane admitted that her family paid a "sizable amount" as ransom. He did not elaborate.

Agustin’s abduction forced the closure of hospitals and clinics here amid fears that the Pentagon gang could seize more medical workers.

The Pentagon gang gained notoriety for its kidnapping activities. Composed mostly of former Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) guerrillas who have turned to crime, the group has been blamed for recent kidnapping incidents in Mindanao.

The group still holds Italian priest Giuseppe Pierantoni whom it abducted from another area in Mindanao in October. – With John Unson, Christina Mendez