Maguindanao police, 6th ID baffled on kidnapping report

MAGUINDANAO (April4) --- Authorities on Saturday said they are still to investigate on stories purporting that four business partners based in Gen. Santos City had been kidnapped and brought to Maguindanao province.Officials of the 36-member provincial League of Municipal Mayors (LMP) said they do not have any information on the assertions that the missing persons, Jason Cababayao, Rho Steven, Francis Wong, and Raulito Suyom, Jr., had been snatched on March 29 in Sharif Aguak, Maguindanao.The allegedly missing persons are reportedly engaged in a construction supply venture in Gen. Santos City. There are no reports about that incident in the blotters of the 36 police stations in all of Maguindanao’s 36 towns,” a senior LMP member said.Captain Jo-Ann Petinglay, spokesperson of the Army’s 6thInfantry Division, said none of their officers in battalions and brigades in Maguindanao and Sultan Kudarat provinces are aware of any such incident either. We’ve been hearing about that story since March 29, but don’t have any confirmation yet as to its veracity,” Petinglay said.Senior Supt. Rolen Balquin, director of the Cotabato City police, was said to have revealed that the four missing individuals were on their way to Cotabato City when gunmen flagged them down while at Sharif Aguak.Petinglay said more than 2,000 soldiers, backed by combat vehicles, were still positioned in Sharif Aguak and six nearby towns at that time, awaiting orders to return to their respective headquarters following a four-week operation against the outlawed Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters.Balquin’s territorial jurisdiction is more than 50 kilometers away from Sharif Aguak, which is inside Maguindanao, a component province of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.The Cotabato City police office is under the Region 12 police headquarters based in Gen. Santos City, not with the ARMM regional police command, which has jurisdiction over Maguindanao.Senior Supt. Rodelio Jocson of the Maguindanao police office said he could not provide any information on the alleged kidnapping incident since investigators do not have any concrete proof that can confirm it.Jocson had told the and//www.ndbcnews.com.ph/ www.ndbcnews.com.ph last April 1, right in his office in Sharif Aguak, that it should be the police’s Anti-Kidnapping Group in Region 12 that should speak on the issue, since it allegedly involves residents of Gen. Santos City. We abide by command communication protocols,” Jocson said.The Maguindanao provincial police office is located only a kilometer away from the portion of the Cotabato-Gen. Santos Highway that straddles through Sharif Aguak’s town proper.Balquin had reportedly said that Cababayao, whose family owns a construction supply outfit in Gen. Santos City, and his three business partners were on their way to Cotabato City riding a white pick-up truck together when they were flagged down and snatched by gunmen along the highway somewhere in Sharif Aguak.Also located along the same highway in Sharif Aguak is the headquarters of the 2ndMechanized Battalion, whose Simba combat vehicles and armored personnel carriers were positioned along the same route until April 3.