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Thursday, May 26, 2005
Bus hijackers free hostages, escape in truck
MANILA -- Three bus hijackers who demanded that a Catholic bishop drive their getaway vehicle released all 11 hostages then escaped Wednesday after a two-day standoff in the southern Philippines, officials said.
Police, who earlier said they suspected the hijackers were communist rebels, said Wednesday they believed the gang was involved in smuggling guns.
The gang hijacked the passenger bus on Tuesday as it approached a police checkpoint in southern Misamis Occidental province.
The police allowed them to leave after they promised to release the hostages, but the driver later crashed the bus in nearby Zamboanga del Sur province and escaped.
The hijackers then demanded a pickup truck, and asked that it be driven by Roman Catholic Bishop Emmanuel Cabajar, who agreed over police objections.
They ordered the 11 hostages to jump off the truck near the provincial capital of Pagadian city and abandoned the bishop in the nearby town of Lakewood where he later said a thanksgiving Mass, said Conchita San Diego, a provincial welfare officer.
"The bishop is safe. The hostage-takers are no longer with him," she said. Some of the hostages were taken to hospitals suffering from cuts and bruises, she added.
Soldiers and police were chasing the gunmen, who fled into a wooded area carrying a bag thought to contain weapons, said police Superintendent Eldorado Gallego.
In an interview with Radio Mindanao Network, the gunmen said they were carrying "some other stuff" they could not surrender in addition to three automatic pistols, four grenades, and a machine pistol.
"We believe they are plain gunrunners who were just surprised at the checkpoint," Gallego said.
Police initially said they thought the hijackers were allied to local communist rebel groups.
"They are not ours," said local rebel spokesman Ismael Marte.
Outgoing regional police chief Vidal Querol had objected to allowing the bishop join the other hostages, saying it was a "foolhardy and knee-jerk reaction" to the gunmen's demand, and that it "complicated" the situation and involved the Vatican.
Kidnappings and hijackings are common in Mindanao, where Muslim and communist guerrillas as well as criminal gangs are active. Police routinely set up checkpoints to curb crime.
Last month, government troops rescued 13 students and villagers after they were abducted in a minibus in a nearby province. Two kidnappers and a policeman were subsequently killed in a jungle clash. (AP)
(May 26, 2005 issue)
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