Pentagon strikes again, seizes trader’s son

COTABATO CITY — Suspected members of the Pentagon kidnap-for-ransom gang snatched a seven-year-old son of a Chinese-Filipino trader in Pikit, North Cotabato yesterday afternoon.

The abduction of Jimmy Yap Jr., whose father, Jimmy Sr., operates a hardware store in the Pikit town proper, came just 10 days after the same group kidnapped Martina Martin, 33, daughter of a rice mill owner in nearby Libungan town.

Sources from the Army’s 40th Infantry Battalion said the boy’s kidnappers, clad in fatigues and armed with caliber .45 pistols, barged into his classroom at the Pikit Central Elementary School, and snatched and dragged him to a getaway vehicle.

Maj. Julieto Ando, spokesman of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said members of the 40th IB, policemen and civilian volunteers are now pursuing Yap’s captors who were last seen fleeing toward the Liguasan marsh.

Yesterday, soldiers captured two suspected kidnappers of Martin while they were installing a boom-type two-way radio antenna they would use for ransom negotiations with her family, during a dawn raid in a remote village in Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao.

Brig. Gen. Rey Kyamko, 6th ID commander, said the suspects, Abdillah Abas and Rasad Ara, gave up without a fight after sensing that combatants of the 603rd Infantry Brigade had cordoned their lair in Barangay Kirkir.

Martin’s kidnappers have demanded a P30-million ransom in exchange for her release.

Abas and Ara, both wanted for various crimes, including robbery and extortion, were first spotted in Barangay Kirkir last Sunday. Villagers immediately reported their presence to an Army detachment which, in turn, responded by sending soldiers and militiamen to arrest the suspects.