ZAMBOANGA CITY, 20 October 2006 — Military officials yesterday said they will not negotiate or pay ransom in exchange for the safe release of three engineers and a driver seized by men who were supposed to protect them in the southern island of Jolo.

“We are firm in the government’s no-ransom policy and we don’t negotiate with kidnappers,” army Capt. Noel Abello, a spokesman for the Western Mindanao Command in Zamboanga City, told Arab News.

But officials also said they will not stop local officials led by Gov. Benjamin Loong of Sulu province from seek the freedom of the four men through negotiations.

Loong was quoted by local radio as saying local leaders are looking for the relatives of the kidnappers to help secure the freedom of the victims.

Engineers Romeo Rivera, a program manager working for the United States Agency for International Development’s Growth with Equity in Mindanao (USAID-GEM); and Reynaldo Rubio and Larry Bautista, of the Manila-based Terra Zyme Chemicals; and their driver, Isidro Amaramo were reportedly seized by their escorts while they were inspecting a USAID-funded road project in Parang town on the island of Jolo, about 950 kilometers south of Manila.

Col. Reynaldo Sealana, commander of an army brigade on Jolo, said the kidnappers were moving their captives from one hideout to another in the towns of Parang, Indanan and Maimbung to avoid detection by the military.

Sealana said leaders of the former rebel group Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) has assured the military that their fighters will not provide sanctuary to the kidnappers. “They contacted us to say that they will rescue the four men should the bandits stray into areas where the MNLF is operating, Sealana said.

The United States government condemned the kidnapping but assured that USAID will not pull out from the project to build a 3.6-kilometer road linking Parang to nearby Indanan town.

“This incident is tragic and unacceptable,” US Embassy spokesman Matthew Lussenhop said. “We regret this kind of lawlessness as it interferes with the development project in Jolo.”

Lussenhop added that the US would continue to work with Philippine authorities in the area against lawlessness.

Senior Superintendent Ahirum Ajirim, provincial police director, also said efforts to negotiate with the kidnappers through their relatives were already underway.

“We believe that this involves an internal problem in the construction,” he said.

While authorities have ruled out the involvement of Al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf rebels, they expressed fears that the kidnappers could hand the victims over to the guerrillas.

“If talks fail, we will launch a full-scale operation against the kidnappers,” Col. Pablo Lorenzo, an army battalion commander, said. “What we want to prevent here is the turning over of the victims to the hands of the Abu Sayyaf group,” he added.

Criminal groups have in the past turned over hostages to the Abu Sayyaf, which have been involved in numerous kidnapping-for-ransom cases. Among the Abu Sayyaf’s previous victims were Western tourists abducted from a Malaysian resort in 2000 and American tourists seized from a Philippine resort in 2001.

The military has been conducting a massive offensive against the Abu Sayyaf and top Jemaah Islamiyah militants Dulmatin and Omar Patek in Jolo since August. (With input from AP)