Source: PDI
LA PURISIMA, Prosperidad, Agusan del Sur—(UPDATE) The hostages are hungry.
In a text message to a village official on Monday morning, hostage Narciso Oliveros asked that food, even dried fish and rice, be delivered as they were already hungry.
“Gutom na kami,” Oliveros said in his text message.
Oliveros and more than a dozen others have been held hostage by gunmen in a mountain village here since Friday.
Meanwhile, members of the hostage crisis management committee made themselves scarce here a day after negotiations bogged down Sunday.
The hostage crisis has entered its third day Monday without visible development.
As of 10:30 a.m. Monday, none of the members of the negotiating team, including provincial social welfare officer Josefina Bajade, have shown up at the makeshift control center that authorities have set up for the crisis managers.
Even Ondo Perez, the leader of the Manobo gunmen holding at least a dozen more hostages, was still not around as noontime approached.
The hostage-takers are relatives of Perez, who has been jailed for a similar hostage-taking case in 2009.
This time, Perez’s brother, Allan, is behind the incident.
Perez, whose imprisonment prompted the abduction by his Manobo followers of 16 teachers and students on Friday, was temporarily freed Sunday from the Agusan provincial jail to help negotiate the release of the hostages, authorities reported.
Perez and Bajade entered the forested area some three kilometers uphill—where the hostages, mostly teachers and students were being held—to talk to his brother, Allan, but they emerged past noontime empty handed.
But on Monday, some 100 soldiers and policemen in full combat gear remained in this once sleepy village, where residents continue to go on with their normal activities despite the crisis. The soldiers and the policemen were seen just roaming the village center.
Also spotted was Perez's mother, who is in her late 60s, at a store here. She was surrounded by government-provided escorts.
There was also Agusan del Sur division superintendent Hipolito Lastimado but attempts by the INQUIRER to talk to him was blocked by his security escorts.
Lastimado and another hostage, Diosdado Cabantac, while trying to look for food and water were intercepted by policemen around 3 p.m. Sunday.
They were sent out by the hostage-takers and were specifically told to come back.
But officials held them and refused to let them return to the area where their fellow hostages were being held.
No official was available to issue statements on Monday about the absence of negotiators here.
But on Sunday afternoon, Senior Supt. Nestor Fajura, spokesperson of the crisis committee, said they will continue to find ways to secure the release of the hostages but ruled out the use of force.
During that press conference, the crisis committee members and lead negotiator Bajade were visibly worn out.
Fajura said they were hopeful the hostage-takers would eventually release the victims.
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LA PURISIMA, Prosperidad, Agusan del Sur—(UPDATE) The hostages are hungry.
In a text message to a village official on Monday morning, hostage Narciso Oliveros asked that food, even dried fish and rice, be delivered as they were already hungry.
“Gutom na kami,” Oliveros said in his text message.
Oliveros and more than a dozen others have been held hostage by gunmen in a mountain village here since Friday.
Meanwhile, members of the hostage crisis management committee made themselves scarce here a day after negotiations bogged down Sunday.
The hostage crisis has entered its third day Monday without visible development.
As of 10:30 a.m. Monday, none of the members of the negotiating team, including provincial social welfare officer Josefina Bajade, have shown up at the makeshift control center that authorities have set up for the crisis managers.
Even Ondo Perez, the leader of the Manobo gunmen holding at least a dozen more hostages, was still not around as noontime approached.
The hostage-takers are relatives of Perez, who has been jailed for a similar hostage-taking case in 2009.
This time, Perez’s brother, Allan, is behind the incident.
Perez, whose imprisonment prompted the abduction by his Manobo followers of 16 teachers and students on Friday, was temporarily freed Sunday from the Agusan provincial jail to help negotiate the release of the hostages, authorities reported.
Perez and Bajade entered the forested area some three kilometers uphill—where the hostages, mostly teachers and students were being held—to talk to his brother, Allan, but they emerged past noontime empty handed.
But on Monday, some 100 soldiers and policemen in full combat gear remained in this once sleepy village, where residents continue to go on with their normal activities despite the crisis. The soldiers and the policemen were seen just roaming the village center.
Also spotted was Perez's mother, who is in her late 60s, at a store here. She was surrounded by government-provided escorts.
There was also Agusan del Sur division superintendent Hipolito Lastimado but attempts by the INQUIRER to talk to him was blocked by his security escorts.
Lastimado and another hostage, Diosdado Cabantac, while trying to look for food and water were intercepted by policemen around 3 p.m. Sunday.
They were sent out by the hostage-takers and were specifically told to come back.
But officials held them and refused to let them return to the area where their fellow hostages were being held.
No official was available to issue statements on Monday about the absence of negotiators here.
But on Sunday afternoon, Senior Supt. Nestor Fajura, spokesperson of the crisis committee, said they will continue to find ways to secure the release of the hostages but ruled out the use of force.
During that press conference, the crisis committee members and lead negotiator Bajade were visibly worn out.
Fajura said they were hopeful the hostage-takers would eventually release the victims.
