Four negotiators of kidnapped Chinese engineer abducted, too

COTABATO CITY — Kidnappers duped a businessman and three compatriots of an abducted Chinese engineer involved in an irrigation project in North Cotabato, and abducted them "en masse" last Sunday in Datu Paglas, Maguindanao while they were about to pay a P5-million ransom in exchange for the victim’s release.

North Cotabato Gov. Emmanuel Piñol, chairman of the crisis committee negotiating the release of the first victim, Zhang Zhung Quiang, identified the latest captives as the foreigner’s brother, Zhang Zhong Yi, Wang Shu Li, Xue Xing and Davao City-based trader Edwin Lim.

Five gunmen snatched Zhang Zhung Quiang, operations manager of the China Import and Expert Technologies Inc., last June along a secluded stretch of the Cotabato-Davao Highway while en route from Davao City to their project site in Carmen, North Cotabato, on board a chartered passenger van.

The four kidnapped negotiators, Piñol said, violated an earlier agreement between the provincial government and the Chinese consulate in Davao City not to pay any ransom to Zhang’s captors.

"They did not even inform us that they were going to Datu Paglas (in Maguindanao) to pay a P5-million ransom to the captors of Zhang. They ended up getting kidnapped by the same group," an irate Piñol told The STAR.

Two of the group’s companions, another Chinese-Filipino merchant named Musthe Lim and Brahim Maliam, a gasoline station operator in Cotabato City, managed to escape from their captors by running away toward the town proper of Datu Paglas.

Piñol said the abduction of the four negotiators further complicates the situation.

The military earlier tagged the group of Commander Tahir Alonto, a notorious kidnapper, as the one holding Zhang captive somewhere at the boundary of Datu Paglas, Sultan sa Barongis and S.K. Pendatun towns.

Six people have so far been arrested in connection with Zhang’s abduction last June. Two sons of a Maguindanao mayor have also been charged for allegedly plotting the abduction of the 43-year-old Zhang, who hardly speaks English.

Zhang’s firm is constructing major components of the Malitubog-Maridagao irrigation project in Carmen, designed to irrigate 11,000 hectares of ricefields in North Cotabato.

Piñol said Sunday’s abduction happened even as the Moro Islamic Liberation Front assured him of its support in locating the victim.

"Now the situation has worsened. I have reported the incident to President Arroyo and I will now ask for a full military offensive just to rescue the victims. I don’t care what happens next," he said.