Selecta executive freed

Abandoned by their financier with the balance of the P50,000 contract still unpaid, the abductors of Selecta Feeds executive Danilo Bautista were forced to release their captive last Thursday in the middle of a ricefield in Bulacan, authorities said yesterday.

Caloocan police chief Senior Superintendent Benjardi Mantele said Bautista, who was abducted by four gunmen last Tuesday while on his way home, was rescued by the police in Pulilan.

Mantele said they expect to catch the mastermind in no time at all.

Bautista, who was blindfolded and his hands tied during his captivity, told investigators his abductors released him after they failed to contact the brains of the abduction by cell phone.

Bautista said he overhead the men talking about their situation in a safehouse, which was about a two-hour ride from where he was abducted on Susano Road, Bagumbong Dulo in Caloocan City.

Although a woman in the safehouse spoke in fluent Tagalog, the men had a thick Visayan accent, he claimed.

Bautista said he overheard the men arguing among themselves whether or not to kill him after failing to get in touch with their financier but decided to free him because "they were paid for an abduction."

He overheard the men saying the mastermind intended to personally kill him later. No ransom was demanded by the group.

City police intelligence chief Superintendent Dionicio Borromeo said this confirmed their earlier theory that the case was not a kidnap-for-ransom (KFR) but a personal vendetta against the victim by persons whose sources of income at the feeds company he allegedly cornered.

Mantele said that the news reports about the abduction could have pressured the still unnamed mastermind to abandon his plan to kill Bautista.

Borromeo said they are now building up an air-tight case against the main suspect. He refused to identify the suspect but hinted that it was one of three employees of the firm they had earlier invited for questioning.

"We have a name. We are just gathering solid evidence to make the charges stick," Borromeo told The STAR.

Metro police chief Deputy Director General Reynaldo Velasco lauded the Caloocan City police for the rescue.

"Manhunt operations are being conducted against Bautista’s captors," he said. – With Pete Laude