2 hostages escape Abu captors
ZAMBOANGA CITY—The military will continue the operation launched in Sulu this week to rescue two kidnapped Philippine Coast Guard members even after both were recovered by soldiers who found them while fleeing from their Abu Sayyaf captors yesterday, as government troops stormed the extremists’ jungle hideout, killing 15 of them.
Gringo Villaruz and Allan Pagaling separately slipped away from the Abu Sayyaf camp on Wednesday night and raced through the jungle as their captors engaged in a gun battle with an elite military force, said Armed Forces of the Philippines spokesperson Col. Noel Detoyato.
“They told me by phone that the terrorists panicked and fled in different directions after seeing that the Army had come so close and had begun the assault,” Col. Allan Arrojado, Task Force Sulu commander, told The Associated Press.
“They are here with us and having a meal right now,” Capt. Antonio Bulao, public affairs officer of the task force, told reporters by phone from an Army base in Jolo. “They are in high spirits but tired after hiding all night before they were found today.”
Bulao said AFP Chief of Staff Gen. Hernando Irriberri had ordered Task Force Sulu to continue its “focused military operations” until all remaining hostages were recovered.
Bulao said Villaruz and Pagaling told the authorities there were four other hostages being held with them, including a Malaysian and a South Korean, in the same location in the jungle near Indanan village on Jolo island. He said the military would continue efforts to free all the hostages.
“The order from headquarters is to rescue all of them,” said Bulao.
The Army early this week launched a risky attempt to rescue Villaruz and Pagaling, after the Abu Sayyaf beheaded a third captive, Rodolfo Boligao.
The two Coast Guard men were abducted in Dapitan, Zamboanga del Norte, some 250 kilometers from Jolo, last May, along with Boligao, a barangay leader.
They were taken to an Abu Sayyaf jungle base in Sulu and shown blindfolded in a video while a knife was held to the neck of one of them.
Boligao was beheaded last week and the extremists threatened to kill the two Coast Guard men if ransom was not paid. Boligao’s decapitated remains were found on a dark Jolo highway last week after the government rejected the ransom demand.
Pagaling said he was also worried about being beheaded.
“When gunfire rang out as close as 15 meters from us, I saw my opportunity so I ran away in the confusion,” he told The Associated Press from a military hospital in Sulu.
Found an hour apart, Pagaling and Villaruz did not know of the other’s escape until they saw each other at the military hospital, said Bulao.
It was Villaruz who was initially found at 7 a.m. in Barangay Buanza by soldiers pursuing the fleeing bandits, said Lt. Gen. Rustico Guerrero, commander of the Western Mindanao Command. Pagaling was found wandering around the same village more than an hour later.
“Villaruz had bruises all over the body while Pagaling was unscathed,” Guerrero said. He said the two were undergoing medical evaluation at the military hospital.
Navy Commander Roy Vincent Trinidad said at least 15 Abu Sayyaf members were killed when the 1st Scout Ranger Battalion under Lt. Col. Eugene Boquio clashed with about 80 terrorists under the command of Yasser Igasan and Alhabshi Misaya in Sitio Marang, Barangay Buanza, Indanan, at about 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday.
As many as 200 Abu Sayyaf members were involved in the fighting that was so fierce the military had to use artillery to drive the extremists back, Detoyato told reporters in Manila.