Douglas Grant’s stepdaughter, April Adzam "Aiman" Grant, was snatched by four men from her home on the violence-ridden southern island-province of Basilan on Wednesday.
The gunmen are thought to be from the Muslim extremist Abu Sayyaf group or the larger separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), according to military sources, and are believed to be holding her for ransom.
Grant said: "In some ways I would like to go, I would like to say: ‘You take me and let my daughter go’."
In an appeal to the kidnappers from his home in Inverness, Scotland, he said: "The main thing is just to get into contact and tell us what to do, sit down and talk. Violence doesn’t do anything except make more violence."
Grant, a 50-year-old hospitality manager, is awaiting more information from his wife, Mina, 43. He converted to the Muslim faith, with the name Hadji Douglas Grant Abdullah.
Mina Rasul Grant said four gunmen speaking the local Muslim dialect approached her house and first asked for water to drink but later demanded P1,000.
When she handed over the money, the gunmen demanded an additional P100,000, the mother said. When she said she could not pay them, the suspects grabbed the girl at gunpoint and told her to raise the money.
Grant said it was impossible for him to travel to be with his wife and their 22-month-old daughter Khadija, as the area had now been declared a no-go area.
Grant added his 43-year-old Filipino wife, whom he met while working in Kuwait, suffered from high blood pressure and he was concerned about her health.
Grant, a former soldier, had settled in the Philippines with his wife and family but was forced to return to Britain last August to care for his elderly parents.
Rasul refused to give an update about the kidnapping, but said there was still no ransom demand.
In Manila, British Ambassador Alan Stanley Collins said they were in constant touch with Philippine authorities so Grant could be updated on developments in the case.
"We are very concerned about (Grant’s) feelings. He’s very upset and concerned about his stepdaughter. I have to reiterate that the child is not a British national," he said.
Earlier, the embassy had warned British nationals traveling to the Philippines to be extra cautious because of the series of bombings and the ongoing armed conflict in Mindanao.
Col. Hilario Atendido, spokesman of the Armed Forces’ Southern Command, said the British Embassy has requested them to give ample protection to Rasul and her 22-month-old daughter.
He said search and rescue operations continue in the hinterlands of Tuburan, the town adjacent to Lamitan where the child was seized.
Col. Kamar Indar, deputy chief of the Army’s 103rd Infantry Brigade based in Basilan, said elements of the 18th Infantry Battalion are scouring Barangay Parang in Tuburan.
Senior Superintendent Omar Ali, information director of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao police, said the victims, two of them identified as Marvin Moda and Steven Chua, were all residents of Sitangkai.
Ali said the victims, three of them Samal fishermen, were abducted in Barangay Alari, Sitangkai by five armed men, held captive for three days on an islet at Bungin Reef, some 10 kilometers off the Sitangkai town proper.
Ali said the victims were rescued immediately after vigilant religious leaders tipped the Tawi-Tawi police of the whereabouts of the kidnappers and their captives.
"It was for the help of local villagers and traditional leaders in the area that the police and military had succeeded in rescuing the kidnap victims," he said.
The kidnappers, believed to be remnants of the Abu Sayyaf group which state forces flushed out of Sulu in recent offensives, fought it out with soldiers and policemen.
The kidnappers, Ali said, abandoned their captives and fled after sensing that government operatives had started to cordon their hideout.  With Aurea Calica, Roel Pareño and John Unson