MILITARY troops are tightening its barricade and have deployed more troops to the two provinces where kidnapped Columban priest Michael Sinnott was believed hidden by a band of rogue Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels.
A report emailed by the Crisis Management Committee (CMC) quoted Task Force Zebra Commander S/Supt. Francisco Cristobal as saying their troops are scattered in three containment areas “to determine the exact location of Fr. Michael Sinnott.”
The three containment areas mentioned are Zamboanga Peninsula, Lanao del Norte and Lanao del Sur.
Troops from the 9th Regional Command, the provincial PNP, ZDN Provincial Command and Zamboanga Sibugay Police Command collectively comprised Task Group Sinnott of Zamboanga Peninsula deployed for patrolling the coastal areas of Tungawan, Olutanga Island and Payao.
Another task group composed of some 30 policemen from the 10th Regional Mobile Group is being mobilized in Lanao del Norte along with military troops from the 103rd and 104th brigades.
Cristobal said these three task groups will pounce anytime and do tactical rescue operations on the abducted priest.
Sinnott and his captors, it was learned, was said to be somewhere in the jungles at the tri-boundary of Sultan Naga Dimaporo, Salvador and Picong.
The other week, a video released by the kidnappers showed the ailing priest asking government to do all means to bring him home safe. The kidnappers also asked a P100 million ransom.
Six armed men seized Sinnott from his home, Oct. 11, in Pagadian City. A notorious pirate named leader Guingona Samal was tagged as the suspect in the kidnapping, who was said to have handed the priest to Latip Jamat, another MILF commander linked to the kidnapping of an Italian priest Giancarlo Bossi in June 2007.
Meanwhile, local journalists from Ozamiz City reported last week that an emissary sent to bring Sinnott’s provisions and medicines talked with them and detailed the abductors’ present whereabouts to be somewhere in Sitio Bulawanon, Brgy. Mecalabo in Picong, Lanao del Sur.
The said emissary claimed Sinnott is now in the hands of a certain Saiddamin Montaner.
The CMC dismissed the report and cautioned media on making any kind of assertion.
Last Sunday, DILG Sec. Ronaldo Puno charged Al Ashree of the MILF’s 113th Base Command as the one responsible for the kidnapping.
The MILF angrily refuted, saying the same Al Asree named by Puno is the one authorized by the MILF leadership to lead in the rescue of Sinnot.
REPORT BY MICHAEL MEDINA