Classes in Basilan schools temporarily suspended due to kidnaps, murders

While millions of students rushed back to school on Tuesday, around 1,500 schoolchildren in Basilan were forced to stay home after a spate of abductions and killings in the island province. Local school officials were prompted to defer school opening, fearing further attacks by bandits from the Abu Sayyaf group, a radio report on Wednesday quoted Senior Superintendent Antonio Mendoza, Basilan provincial police director, as saying. Classes were suspended in nine schools in Akbar town and three schools in Sumisip town. The 12 schools accommodate a total of about 1,500 students. The report said classes will resume only after the local police, the military, and officials from the Department of Education complete their assessment of the security situation in the two towns. In separate search operations over the weekend, the military found the decapitated bodies of the three loggers earlier abducted in Barangay Abong-Abong in Maluso town. The abduction and killing were said to have been carried out by the group of Abu Sayyaf leader Puruji Indama. On June 4, a week before the murders, suspected Abu Sayyaf bandits also shot dead three rubber plantation workers they abducted in Sumisip, after their families failed to pay the P3-million ransom. The bodies of victims Claudio Mañanita, Rolando Francisco, and Dariel Quintela were discovered by residents in Sukaten village a day after they were thought to have been slain. In May, troops raided an Abu Sayyaf camp in the province, killing a bandit and capturing 14 others. — Mark Merueñas/RJAB Jr./LBG, GMANews.TV