ZAMBOANGA CITY – Police and the military have launched a massive search for a missing engineer involved in a Saudi-funded scholarship project for poor Muslim students.
Maj. Gen. Ruben Rafael, anti-terror Task Force Comet chief, said Morced Tagitis went missing after checking in at ASY Pension House in Barangay Kakuyugan, Jolo, Sulu on Oct. 31.
“Our intelligence forces are now assisting the police and have launched an intensified surveillance to locate this missing person,” he said.
Rafael said based on police reports, Tagitis is scholarship program coordinator of the Islamic Development Bank, a Jeddah consortium based in Manila.
“So far, no group has come out to claim responsibility and the intelligence unit has not intercepted any information whether Tagitis is in the custody of any armed group,” he said.
The military had mobilized the Jolo Internal Defense Force to search for Tagitis, Rafael said.
Chief Superintendent Joel Goltiao, Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao police director, said policemen and Marines have joined forces to locate Tagitis.
“We can’t say this early if he was kidnapped because our units in Sulu are still trying to gather information on the whereabouts now of engineer Tagitis,” he said.
Goltiao said the Sulu provincial police are now searching for Tagitis and his companion, who is reportedly a student of a state college in Jolo.
Tagitis was in Zamboanga City to attend an orientation of beneficiaries of the IDB-funded scholarship program last month before proceeding to Jolo to meet some scholars, he added. – Roel Pareño, John Unson