JOBERT PEREZ RELEASED FROM PRISON TO HELP FREE FILIPINO HOSTAGES

tribal leader Jobert Perez

MANILA, Philippines – A jailed tribal leader has been temporarily freed to help urge gunmen, including his relatives, to safely release 16 mostly grade school teachers in the latest high-profile hostage crisis to hit the Philippines in recent months, officials said Sunday.
On Friday, at least five Manobo tribesmen snatched the 16 people, who were walking along a main road from graduation ceremonies at three schools, and took them at gunpoint aboard two motorcycle taxis to a hilly hinterland in remote Prosperidad town in southeastern Agusan del Sur province, officials said.

• A government negotiator traveled Sunday to where the hostage-takers were supposed to be keeping their captives to resume talks, but failed to find them. The hostage-takers led by a man identified as Ken-ken Perez, however, remained reachable by phone and asked to meet his father. Officials were assessing whether to grant that demand, police Senior Inspector Joel Mendez said.
• The gunmen have demanded the freedom of tribal leader Jobert Perez, who was jailed for taking 79 people hostage in 2009 over a long-running clan feud in Agusan. A local court has temporarily freed Perez, who was allowed by police to urge the gunmen over the phone to peacefully end the hostage-taking, regional police chief Reynaldo Rafal said.
• "This is tragic because these are lowly paid teachers who are being held," Prosperidad Mayor Alvin Magdamet told The Associated Press by telephone. "They worked hard to prepare for the graduation ceremonies and ended being hostaged."
• Aside from the teachers, the other hostages who traveled from remote villages to attend the school ceremonies were education officials, students, relatives and two men who drove the motorcycle taxis that the gunmen commandeered, Rafal said.

Food and water were delivered Saturday to the hostage-takers, who apparently took their hostages to abandoned huts in a forested area about two miles (three kilometers) from where they were kidnapped. Police sharpshooters and army troops have been deployed to unspecified areas near the hostage scene, Rafal said, adding the hostage-takers were armed with an M16 rifle, a shotgun and a pistol.

Source: AP