Police identified Thursday the owner of the van that was used in abducting Italian businessman Rolando del Torchio in Dipolog City Wednesday night.
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He was a missionary priest with the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions there in the 1990s before he left the priesthood, said Dipolog City police chief Rannie Hachuela.
A jacket, sunglasses and the cardboard boxes the kidnappers concealed their M16 rifles in were recovered from the pizza parlor.
Police said they have not discovered who is behind the latest kidnappings.
Rolando del Torchio, 53, was abducted inside the Ur Choice Pizza House he owns about 7 p.m in Quezon Avenue, Barangay Miputak, Dipolog.
Last month, gunmen kidnapped two Canadian tourists, a Norwegian resort manager and a Filipino woman at a resort on Samal island near Davao City, the largest city in Mindanao.
Long-running security problems have hounded the region, which has bountiful resources and promises but is hamstrung by poverty and an array of insurgents and outlaws.
The kidnappers also tried to seize two Filipino customers but they resisted and a gunman barked an order that the two be set free because they already had their target, said Leonor Rabino, a Dipolog city information officer. Del Torchio was snatched by still unknown armed me yesterday.
Police said the gunmen entered Del Torchio’s pizzeria, inside the campus of Andres Bonifacio College, in the evening.
“Governor Uy condemned the abduction and urged the authorities for the speedy and safe recovery of the victim”, said Baguio.
According to Trinidad, troops immediately conducted pursuit operations utilizing two speedboats of the Army’s Special Forces, including a pump boat and speedboat of the 21st Infantry Battalion (IB) to intercept the perpetrators in the coastal areas southwest of Zamboanga del Norte.
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Del Torchio, who was ordained priest in 1984, was a missionary of the Pontificio Istituto Missioni Estere (PIME).
