Sunday, June 24, 2007 Bossi group nixes ransom for members, priest says
KORONADAL CITY -- Abducted Italian priest Giancarlo Bossi's congregation won't pay ransom in case his kidnappers would demand for money, a fellow priest said Friday.
Italian Fr. Peter Geremiah, Tribal Filipino coordinator of the Diocese of Kidapawan, said the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Mission (Pime) is strongly against heeding ransom demands from kidnappers.
"The organization has a policy not to give in to ransom demands since heeding so will encourage [kidnappers] to do it to other members. The kidnappers might make it a [lucrative] business among religious persons," Geremiah said.
Bossi was snatched in Payao town in Zamboanga Sibugay on June 10 by several armed men now pursued by the military in the dense jungles of the province.
The Moro Islamic Liberation Front is helping government security forces rescue the abducted priest from his captors.
Geremiah appealed to the abductors of Bossi to free him unconditionally due to his community works especially with the poor.
This was not the first time that Italian religious workers have been the victim of lawless elements in Mindanao.
A few years ago, Italian priest Giussepe Pierrantoni was also kidnapped but was released.
But the most controversial was the grisly murder case of Fr. Tulio Favali in Tulunan, North Cotabato in 1985 that led to the conviction of Christian vigilante leader Norberto Manero and his brothers.
Manero and his companions reportedly ate the brains and other internal organs of the victim.
Their original target was supposedly Geremiah but luckily Favali came ahead of him in the area where the killers waited.
Meantime, MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu reiterated that the front's members were not behind the abduction of Bossi as rebels' efforts to help recover the priest still continue. Initial military investigations alleged that an MILF commander in Zamboanga Sibugay was behind Bossi's kidnapping. (BSS)>/b>
