ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines, 30 June 2007 — Colleagues of Fr. Giancarlo Bossi, the Italian priest abducted by gunmen in the southern Philippines, expressed concern yesterday over the lack of progress in efforts to rescue the kidnap victim.
“We know that Giancarlo cannot disappear like a ghost. He is too big and must be difficult to hide him. We are very worried about him,” the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME), the missionary group of Bossi, said in a statement.
The priest was seized by still unknown gunmen on June 10 while on his way to celebrate mass in Payao town of Zamboanga Sibugay province.
“We were told that both the government forces and the MILF contacts have been monitoring all possible areas, all possible armed groups, and all possible witnesses, even the most secret hideouts, using the latest high-tech devices,” the PIME also complained.
“We were told that emissaries were sent with cell phones to verify if he is alive, we were told that medicines had been provided for his hypertension, we were told he is well alive riding a horse.
“We were told that the kidnappers are asking for 15 million pesos. But when we tried to verify all these reports we have come to the conclusion that they are all false reports,” it added.
Leaders of the MILF, the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front, have earlier said their fighters have cornered the kidnappers, only to say later that the bandits have escaped.
Father Gianni Battista Sandalo, the PIME superior in the Philippines, said it was dismaying that the repeated claims of contact being made with the kidnappers were turning out to be baseless.
The military yesterday said it has new information about the priest but refused to give details, saying it could jeopardize rescue operations.
“There are positive developments,” Lt. Col. Bartolome Bacarro, a military spokesman in Western Mindanao, told reporters.
