MILF kidnappers elude law dragnet

ZAMBOANGA CITY — Military agents and Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF) intensified their rescue operations after a kidnap gang of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) slipped out a hostaged Filipino-Chinese businesswoman from the hinterlands of Basilan province.

Captive Mrs. Marilyn Tiu who was abducted more than a month ago from the coastal town of Alicia, Zamboanga del Sur, was taken by the members of the MILF’s Special Operations Group (SOG) in Tuburan town, Basilan.

However, after sensing the intensified search and rescue operations of the combined police, PAOCTF and military agents, the kidnapers headed by Commander Kiddie, a known MILF special squad leader, breached the government authorities’ dragnet and slipped out of the province with their captive.

PAOCTF agents believed that the kidnappers, with their captive, fled towards the nearby Sacol Island, some 1.5 nautical miles east of this city and a known rebel jump-off point.

"The kidnappers may have escaped out from us but not from the other military unit which continued trailing them," Col. Saulho Aromin, Army’s 103rd Brigade commander, said.

Tiu, who was abducted in the village of Dawa-Dawa, Alicia town last Nov. 27, was reported a week ago to have been executed by her captors after her family reportedly failed to pay the initial "board and lodging" fee.

But her husband, Richard Tiu, denied the reports that was also bolstered with the sightings of the military in Basilan. — Roel Pareño