Surigao contractor's kidnappers demand P70 million

BUTUAN CITY, Philippines – The kidnappers of a businessman and civil works contractor based in Carrascal, Surigao del Sur have demanded P70-million ransom in exchange of his release, former Surigao del Sur governor Vicente Pimentel Jr. said yesterday.

Pimentel said he has talked to the family of 67-year-old engineer Victor Lim Tan, owner and manager of Carrascal Integrated Enterprises, who said “they cannot afford it (ransom).”

“I don’t know what to do now but joint military and police forces are now conducting manhunt operations against Tan’s abductors,” said Pimentel, now the mayor of Carrascal town.

Pimentel said it was not the New People’s Army which seized Tan but an organized crime group composed of former and current communist rebels who have resorted to extortion, robbery and kidnapping.

Tan was kidnapped by eight armed men at his firm’s construction site in Lanuza town last May 21.

He said Tan, also a former mayor of Carrascal and owner of a wholesale department store in Tandag City, was also snatched in Lianga town in 1997.