ZAMBOANGA CITY, 22 October 2006 — One of the engineers who were kidnapped by gunmen in Jolo said yesterday their ordeal was traumatic but vowed nonetheless to return to the troubled island to complete his work.

“I will return to Jolo despite what happened. I have no other choice but to go back. I need to finish our projects even though the threat is still there,” Romeo Rivera said at a press conference here in Zamboanga City.

“I have been staying in Sulu for quite sometime now and I did not expect this would happen to me,” he said.

Rivera was seized by the gunmen on Tuesday as he and three others were returning from an inspection of a US Agency for International Development-funded road project he was managing in the town of Parang.

The military yesterday blamed a faction of the extremist Abu Sayyaf group for the abduction, which ended Friday when all four victims escaped.

Lt. Gen. Eugenio Cedo, the military chief for Western Mindanao, said three of the kidnappers had been identified positively by the victims from pictures presented to them.

Cedo identified the trio as Bong Iskandal and brothers Omar and Iting Sailani, who he said are members of the Abu Sayyaf’s urban terror group. The group had been implicated in the murder of news photographer in downtown Jolo two years ago.

During the press conference, the victims confirmed what they have told some soldiers and police that they escaped, contrary to claims by some military officials that they were freed by their captors owing to pressure from responding troops and irate villagers.

Larry Bautista, an engineer of the Manila-based Terra Zyme Chemicals, said they managed to untie themselves and escaped when one of their captors fell asleep. “The experience made me closer to God. My ordeal has made my faith in God stronger,” said Bautista, who showed to media a yellow nylon rope the abductors used to tie him up.

Reynaldo Rubio, the third engineer, said the kidnappers told them they did not mean to harm them and that they only wanted money. Rubio said his captors took his ATM (automated teller machine) card and was able to withdraw about 60,000 pesos from a bank in Jolo. “I was told about it by the bank,” he said.

The fourth victim, driver Isidro Amarano Lapus, said it was a terrible experience for him, having been manhandled by their captors. But he said he will still go back with Rivera to Jolo to finish their project.

Col. Reynaldo Sealana, commander of an army brigade on Jolo, maintained that the four had been freed without ransom. “The kidnappers freed the hostages without ransom because of mounting military pressure,” he said. He said villagers who stand to benefit from the road project also threatened to seize the families and relatives of the kidnappers.

The four hostages were recovered by troops as they were walking near a village in Parang town on Friday. Cedo yesterday said troops were pursuing the kidnappers.