ZAMBOANGA, 14 December 2004 — Communist insurgents seized two dozen people working on government infrastructure projects in eastern Mindanao and used them as shield against pursuing soldiers, officials said.
A New People’s Army (NPA) band led by Leonardo Pitao also torched bulldozers worth 20 million pesos before taking the hostages on a village called Santo Ni?o in Talaingod town, Davao del Norte province, Thursday, but freed all them the next day after soldiers kept their distance.
“The hostages were all released. They are all safe and troops are pursuing the rebels,” the deputy commander of the army’s 4th Infantry Division, Brig, Gen, Alexander Yapching, told reporters.
He said the rebels tried to demand ransom for the hostages’ freedom, but freed them just the same.
Maj. Gen. Samuel Bagasin, the military commander in the Davao Region, said the rebels were resorting to kidnapping-for-ransom to finance their violent activities in the south.
“The NPA is now resorting to kidnapping-for-ransom as the proceeds from extortion are not enough to support their violent activities, but most of the money went to the pockets of NPA commanders,” he said.
The NPA is the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the National Democratic Front (NDF), which have been fighting for the establishment of a Maoist state in the country.
Manila opened talks with the CPP and the NDF in February, but rebel leaders suspended peace negotiations in August after the Arroyo government rejected their demands the government asks the United States and European countries to remove them from their lists of international terrorists.
