ZAMBOANGA CITY, 3 April 2006 — Suspected communist insurgents hijacked a bus and then torched the vehicle after briefly holding dozens of passengers hostage in the southern Philippines, officials said.

At least four armed men, believed to be members of the outlawed New People’s Army (NPA), seized the bus late Saturday near San Luis village in the outskirts of Gingoog in Misamis Oriental province in northern part of the main southern island of Mindanao.

Gingoog is about 122 kilometers east of the provincial capital, Cagayan de Oro, and 760 km south of Manila.

The insurgents briefly held the passengers at gunpoint and asked them if there were soldiers or policemen or secret marshals in the bus. They later freed all the hostages unharmed and set the vehicle on fire.

“No passengers were reported hurt during the incident. The insurgents torched the bus after its owners refused to pay extortion money,” said Lt. Col. Francisco Simbajon, spokesman of the Philippine Army’s 4th Infantry Division.

Last week, a powerful bomb explosion ripped through a passenger bus in Digos City in Davao del Sur province, also in Mindanao, wounding at least 17 people.

Authorities offered 100,000 pesos as bounty for the capture of the bombers. Police said the attack was connected to a failed extortion attempt by a shadowy gang called the Urban Tiger Action Group.

The NPA, armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines and the National Democratic Front (CPP-NDF), is fighting for the establishment of a Maoist state in the country.

Also yesterday, a police sergeant was gunned down in the southern island of Basilan, officials said.

Senior Police Officer Salvador Castro II was shot dead by still unidentified gunmen in Lamitan town in Basilan, about 920 kilometers south of Manila and 20 km south of Zamboanga City.

Castro was on his motorcycle with his son Salvador III and a nephew when gunmen also riding a motorcycle drove near them and opened fire with automatic pistols near the village of Semut at around 8.30 a.m., police said.

The officer was instantly killed and his son was injured, police said. The third passenger survived the attack.

“They shot SPO2 Castro in the head. He was killed on the spot,” said Lamitan’s deputy chief of police, Inspector Elmer Acuña.

Police appealed to those who witnessed the attack to help in the investigation by providing information about the assailants.

Acuña said investigators were still trying to establish the motive for the attack and no group or individual claimed responsibility for the killing so far. Basilan is a stronghold of the Abu Sayyaf extremist group, blamed for the series of killing and bombings in the southern region.

The island is also notorious for vendetta killings among warring clans.