MANILA -- Gunmen finally released Sunday the remaining 47 hostages they were holding at a jungle hideout in Agusan del Sur after government negotiators agreed not to arrest them, officials said.
"Declaring officially that all hostages are free. Yes, at last," Agusan del Sur Vice Governor Santiago Cane told reporters Sunday.
Cane said the hostages left the tribal gunmen’s jungle encampment, which had been surrounded by troops and snipers, aboard two military trucks. The gunmen, who are former government-armed militiamen, then surrendered their a**ault rifles, grenades and ammunition.
Looking tired but relieved after three days in captivity, the mostly male hostages waved and smiled at journalists and Army troops waiting at a nearby muddy village.
All wore new white shirts given by government officials who fetched them. They were taken to nearby D.O. Plaza Hospital in Prosperidad town, the capital of Agusan del Sur province, for a medical checkup.
The hostage crisis began Thursday when the gunmen, led by Joebert Perez, abducted more than 70 people from an elementary school and surrounding houses in New Maasin village in Prosperidad after police attempted to arrest him on a murder charge. Several schoolchildren and women were freed earlier, leaving 47 in captivity.
The crisis ended after Perez signed an agreement Sunday with government negotiators to free his hostages in exchange for a pledge that he and his men will not be arrested for either the abductions or past murder charges that arose from a violent land dispute with another clan.
Government negotiators, invoking a law that protects the rights of ethnic groups, agreed to Perez's demand to have his case handled by a tribal court. Police also promised to disarm his rivals, Jun Tubay’s group, whom Perez has accused of killing some of his relatives over the land dispute.
Perez and Tubay group belonged to the Lumadnong Pakigbisog sa Karaga (Lupaka), an anti-communist organization, which the military tapped in its counter-insurgency drive in Agusan del Sur and nearby areas.
Lupaka, however, was disbanded in 2001.
Following their surrender and release of the hostages Sunday, Perez and his group will be placed temporarily under the custody of the Local Crisis Management Committee (LCMC), Provincial Government, Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and National Communities on Indigenous People (NCIP) while discussion of their case continues.
The kidnappings in Agusan del Sur were the latest in a series of security crises that have gripped Mindanao, including a jailbreak Sunday by suspected Moro rebels in the island province of Basilan, and a ma**acre of at least 57 people, including 30 journalists, last November 23 allegedly by members of a powerful clan and loyal militiamen in Maguindanao province.
The involvement of former and active militiamen in the hostage-taking and the Maguindanao ma**acre have sparked calls for the disbanding of paramilitary forces, which have been armed by the government to help in counter-insurgency a**aults.
The militias, drawn from the ranks of the unemployed, landless farmers, former rebels and ex-soldiers, have become notorious for abusing civilians, looting homes or ending up as private armies of political warlords. (AP/PNA/Sunnex)
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