NPA guerrillas seize military intel officer

COTABATO CITY — New People’s Army (NPA) guerrillas snatched a bemedalled agent of the Military Intelligence Group 12 in Sultan Kudarat over the weekend while he was gathering information on the whereabouts of a notorious kidnapping gang holding two Chinese captives in the area.

The plainclothes agent, Sgt. Jeremiah Rosete, was reportedly on his way to his unit’s base at the Awang district here from Columbio, Sultan Kudarat on board a motorcycle when the NPA rebels blocked his path and, at gunpoint, ordered him to disembark.

Catholic radio station dxMS, in its morning public affairs program yesterday, quoted local sources as confirming that communist rebels have abducted Rosete.

Sources from the Marine Corps said Rosete was a former member of the 3rd Marine Battalion, which is guarding strategic stretches of the Secretary Narciso Ramos Highway in Matanog, Maguin—danao.

Maj. Gen. Librado Ladia, Marine Corps commandant, said Rosete, an Ilonggo, has been with the MIG-12 since 1999.

"That’s the price of being in the (military) service," Ladia said, referring to Rosete’s predicament.

Sources in Columbio said the rebels could have learned that Rosete was an MIG-12 agent and abducted him on suspicion that he was tracking down movements of NPA units in the municipality.

The Sultan Kudarat police said investigators have yet to determine the identities of the rebels now holding Rosete captive.

Rosete and his colleagues in MIG-12 have long been pursuing the kidnapping group led by Tahir Alonto, which is holding captive two Chinese, Zhang Zhung Yi and Edwin Lim, at the boundary of Columbio and Datu Paglas, Maguindanao.

Earlier, Presidential Assistant for Mindanao Jesus Dureza, chairman of the government panel negotiating peace with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, said there are continuing "backchannel efforts" to secure the release, without any ransom, of Zhang and Lim.