7 abducted families in Agusan released

BUTUAN CITY — After hours of dramatic negotiations, seven families in Sitio Mankilana, Barangay Lawan-Lawan, Las Nieves, Agusan del Norte, were released yesterday afternoon.

The victims were earlier taken hostage by some 30 armed members of Bungkatol Liberation Front (BULIF) headed by a certain Datu Ronald Manhumusay.

However, tension still grips the remote Agusan town, precipitated by a series of violent incidents that occurred in the area since Jan. 21.

Belated reports from the Caraga Police Regional Office claimed that the families were taken hostage inside the Lawan-Lawan Elementary School at around noon last Jan. 25.

A certain Rinel Dacanay, a community development specialist of Mindanao Baptist Light Center, reported the hostage-taking incident to the Las Nieves municipal police station.

The Las Nieves police and the Philippine Army, led by 30th Infantry Battalion Commanding Officer Lt. Col. Isidro Purisima, and Lawan-Lawan barangay officials, headed by Barangay captain Roger Mansinogdan, negotiated the release of the hostages. After more than three hours, the suspects yielded.

The police and the military failed to elaborate though what happened to the hostage takers.

According to the police report, the motive for the abduction was a long-standing conflict over ancestral land claims that has already escalated into a tribal conflict among the indigenous people in the area.

The conflict allegedly started when a non-government organization started a project in the area. The armed BULIF reportedly suspected the NGO of having ties with the communist New People’s Army (NPA).

In return, the NGO charged the military for arming the group to aid in its anti-insurgency drive but tagged them as responsible for the abduction of Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Regional Technical Director for Forestry Christopher Quizon in 2004.

Quizon was later released after negotiations.