Sunday, September 24, 2006
Kidnapped victim freed after payment of ransom
ZAMBOANGA CITY -- After almost two months in captivity, the 18-year-old daughter of a university president finally regained her freedom after payment of ransom.
Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said Saturday he received word from his "operative" in Mindanao that Grace Gonzales, who was kidnapped in Zamboanga City last Aug. 1, was "recovered."
The girl's father, Eldigario Gonzales, president of the Western Mindanao State University, told reporters in Zamboanga that his family paid for her daughter's expenses while in captivity.
"We paid some amount that they call 'board and lodging fee' and we are happy that my daughter is finally reunited with us," he said.
He refused to say how much they paid. "Board and lodging fees" are a euphemism that outlaw groups use to describe ransom money.
Ermita insisted that no ransom was paid for the release of Grace but he also declined to say how authorities managed to negotiate with suspected Abu Sayyaf terrorists for her freedom.
He said President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo met three days earlier with Basilan Representative Jerry Salapuddin and several town mayors on the island and told them to "do something to recover the girl."
Four armed men snatched Grace outside their residence in Aurora village in Guiwan here last Aug. 1. She was later taken to Basilan.
Grace was walking with a female companion outside Aurora Village when the four men on board two motorcycles went near them.
One of the men struck the teenager's companion with a handgun on the back of the head, knocking her unconscious while his cohorts seized Grace.
The girl and her family were reunited in Isabela, capital of Basilan, and later flown by an Air Force helicopter to a military hospital for a medical examination in Zamboanga, about 860 kilometers south of Manila.
Gonzales said her daughter, a deaf-mute, had lost weight. He said Grace, in sign language, told him: "Daddy I am okay, don't cry."
"I cannot control my emotions seeing my girl," Gonzales said.
In sign language, Grace told her father: "I am okay. I am tired and I want to go home."
Gonzales appealed to media to allow them private time.
"This is too much for my girl. If we were traumatized, tortured, and suffered while she's in captivity, more so with what my princess had experienced."
"I was informed that she was transferred from one to three barangays (villages) before she was released by the kidnappers," he said.
He fetched his daughter from a house owned by Kuraiz Ladjiman, an accountant of the Tipo-Tipo municipal government, in Menzi village in Isabela City.
No group claimed responsibility for the kidnapping, but the military had previously blamed the Abu Sayyaf, tagged by Manila as behind several high profile kidnappings of foreigners and wealthy Filipino in Zamboanga City.
The group had last month beheaded two of their kidnapped victims in Jolo island, about 950 km south of Manila after their family failed to pay P1 million in ransom.
The severed head of Jeffrey Selvin, 27, was found by civilians in front of the police headquarters in downtown Jolo on August 12. Her mother's body was later recovered.
The duo was kidnapped July 27 outside their house at Gandasuli Road in Jolo. The 58-year-old woman, Jacky, owns a bakery shop in Jolo.
In June, suspected Abu Sayyaf gunmen freed a kidnapped 41-year-old pharmacy owner Bren Vergara after more than two months in captivity after their family allegedly paid more than one million pesos in ransom. The man was snatched April 12 together with his ailing 70-year-old mother Caridad Vergara, who had been later freed near Jolo town.
The group had previously kidnapped a German canning executive here, two Belgians and a Taiwanese matriarch and Filipino-Chinese traders. (Al Jacinto/Sunnex)
(September 24, 2006 issue)
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