Businesswoman seized

DASMARIÑAS, Cavite — A businesswoman abducted here last Monday, has been freed by her captors after paying them $32,900 in cash and a time deposit certificate and signing a document selling an apartment in Canada which she had inherited.

Superintendent Rodolfo Soriano, this town’s police chief, said Maria Ferlalaine Madrigal, 26, had just left a beauty parlor when a woman, who introduced herself as a lawyer, and a male companion forced her to board a van.

Her abductors threatened to kill her five-year-old son Leo if she resisted. She is a single parent.

Soriano said Madrigal was brought to Imus town where she withdrew $100 from a Metrobank branch. From there, they proceeded to the Senate building in Pasay City where she was told to empty her dollar savings account at the Philippine National Bank branch there.

Madrigal withdrew $2,800. Afterwards, her abductors brought her to the PNB branch at the Philippine General Hospital where she withdrew a time deposit certificate for $30,000 from the account of her mother, Dr. Maria Lalynda Madrigal, who is in Canada.

Police said the kidnappers also forced Madrigal to sign a deed of sale for a three-door apartment she had inherited to people whom she did not know.

Madrigal was released in the vicinity of the Philippine Postal Corp. building at Plaza Lawton in Manila. She immediately sought the help of the nearby police precinct, where Soriano fetched her.

Soriano said unknown people had tried to extort money from Madrigal in Cagayan de Oro where she had some businesses. Refusing to accede to the demands, a bomb was even planted in her car but it failed to explode.