Govt checking reports traders seized in Malaysia brought to RP

Government forces are verifying reports that two Malaysian-Chinese businessmen abducted in Malaysia have been moved by their captors to the southern Philippine province of Sulu, police and military said on Wednesday. Chief Superintendent Bienvenido Latag, acting director of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, said they have received information that Chen Yui Chung and Lai Wong Chung, who had been kidnapped by suspected Abu Sayyaf bandits, were later brought to Tawi-Tawi province and then to Sulu. “Wala tayong validation sa information na iyon, but may mga report sa akin. Iyong ating mga intelligence agents pinaga-gather natin ng information na maayos kasi gusto natin, bago tayo mag-report, tama naman iyong ating report," Latag said in an interview. (We have no validation regarding that information, but we have reports. I’ve asked our intelligence to gather information because we want verified information before we divulge the report.) According to Latag, an Abu Sayyaf group led by Albader Parad nabbed the two businessmen on Sivangkat Island in Semporma town in Sabah, Malaysia. One was a manager and the other a supervisor of a seaweed farm in the area. “The group temporarily stopped over Sibutu in Tawi-Tawi for refueling along with their victims onboard two speed boats with two outboard motors, then proceeded to Siasi, Sulu," Latag said. Brigadier General Rustico Guerrero, commander of the Armed Forces’ Task Force Comet (an anti-terror unit based in the southern Philippines) also echoed Latag’s concerns regarding the reports. “We are checking because there is no confirmation yet. We are only treating the reports as information. But we are on alert. We have been checking [the reports] since the receipt of the information," Guerrero said in Filipino. Sulu is a known stronghold of the Abu Sayyaf bandits, who are perceived to have links to international terrorist group al-Qaeda. Parad’s group reportedly led the January 2009 abduction of three International Committee of the Red Cross workers – Filipina Mary Jean Lacaba, Swiss Andreas Notter, and Italian Eugenio Vagni. Lacaba and Notter were freed in April that year, while Vagni was freed in July. Road workers abducted in Sulu Sulu Governor Abdusakur Tan has ordered police and military to verify the reported the abduction of the two Malaysian-Chinese businessmen. Tan likewise ordered for the immediate search and rescue of the two Filipino construction workers abducted in the Maimbung, Sulu last Monday. About six armed men took the workers, identified as Raja Harun and Jalal Alih, who were driving a dump truck for a road project funded by the United States military. The kidnappers, identified as Abon Lnu and Junior Lnu, also burned the workers’ dump truck. - with Sophia Dedace/LBG, RJAB Jr., GMANews.TV