ZAMBOANGA CITY, 1 June 2007 — Four people were seized by “cattle rustlers” in the troubled southern Philippines yesterday, but they were freed hours later after Moro separatist guerrillas intervened, officials said yesterday.

The military identified the victims as Thomas Wallraf of Germany, his Filipino wife May Sharon, Consuela San Juan, and Diego Delfin.

Military and police field reports quoted witnesses as saying the four were traveling in a van to Cotabato City in the main southern island of Mindanao when they were stopped by armed men near the town of Pikit in North Cotabato province.

Maj. Gen. Raymundo Ferrer, chief of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said quoted military and police field reports as saying the suspects flagged down the four, who were riding a white van, before forcing them into a “skylab” or a motorcycle fitted with a wooden plank to accommodate more passengers.

“Accordingly, the abductors tied up the victims and boarded a skylab motorcycle and proceeded to an unknown direction,” Ferrer said.

Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) fighters, who were tipped of the kidnapping, immediately surrounded the hostages and their captors not far from where the abduction took place, said MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu.

The MILF has a standing agreement with the government to help crack down on criminality in MILF strongholds.

One of the hostages, May Sharon Wallraf, later said they were not harmed but shaken by their ordeal.

“We are really thankful that they did not harm any of us. We are so tired and we’’ll probably fly back to Manila to get some rest,” she told reporters in Pikit as they were turned over to the military.

She said the gunmen flagged down their van at a checkpoint and seized them. “We did not think we were being kidnapped because they were all wearing uniforms like those of the soldiers. They took our belongings and tied our hands and took us away,” she said.

The woman said she and her husband were in Pikit on a business trip. “We are into metal trading,” she said. Other reports said the German national is a treasure hunter.

The abduction came as Filipino and American troops started Naval war games in Zamboanga City and Basilan province in Western Mindanao.