ZAMBOANGA CITY, 6 July 2007 — Troops have failed to locate an Italian Catholic priest, three weeks after unidentified gunmen kidnapped him from a remote village in Zamboanga Sibugay province in the southern Philippines.

But military chief Gen. Hermogenes Esperon said there would be no letup in the search for Bossi, even with the pullout by Moro Islamic Liberation Front’s (MILF) fighters from the rescue effort.

“We’re not letting up on the operations,” said Esperon, adding that dozens of US-trained commandos have joined the search.

Nearly 2,000 soldiers, backed by four navy boats and four helicopters, had been searching in the Zamboanga Peninsula in the western part of Mindanao island, together with MILF fighters.

MILF fighters decided to pull out early this week, saying the increasing number of forces involved in the operations increased the risks of possible misencounters.

The MILF had earlier sent its forces to help search for Bossi as part of its agreement with the government to cooperate in fighting criminality in places where the separatist group holds sway.

There have been no sightings of or contacts with the priest since he was abducted in the town of Payao after saying mass on June 10.

On Wednesday, Italian lawmaker Margherita Boniver arrived in Manila to work with the Philippine government for the safe release of Bossi.

The 57-year-old Milan-born priest is suffering from hypertension, his colleagues from the Papal Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME) have said.

Security officials have previously said that troops had surrounded the hideout of the kidnappers and that his rescue was imminent, but this proved wrong.

The MILF also earlier said the kidnappers demanded “tens of millions” of pesos in ransom, but the government and PIME officials said the information was unverified.

Bossi’s congregation said it has not received any proof that the priest is alive.

Still, Esperon maintained that the priest was alive.

“All indications would tell us that Father Bossi is alive. Proof of life would be something higher, meaning a picture or a voice tape, but it’s more of (an) indication, what we have right now,” he said.

Bossi is the third Italian priest to be kidnapped in Mindanao since 1998. Bandits also kidnapped an Italian priest, Luciano Benedetti, in Zamboanga del Norte province in 1998.

Benedetti, 52, was held for nearly 10 weeks until he was freed in exchange for a huge government ransom.

In 2001, renegade MILF fighters also snatched Giuseppe Pierantoni as the 44-year-old from Bologna said mass in the parish church of Dimataling town in Zamboanga del Sur.

The priest was freed after six months in captivity in exchange for an unspecified ransom, but he claimed to have escaped from his kidnappers. His companions claimed he suffered from Stockholm syndrome, a phenomenon in which a hostage begins to identify with and grow sympathetic to his captor. (With input from Reuters)