DIPOLOG CITY, Zamboanga del Norte -Authorities have activated Task Force Rolando and a Crisis Management Committee (CMC) to address the abduction case of a former Italian priest seized by seven gunmen late Wednesday in this city.
Advertisement
Dennis Baguio, Zamboanga del Norte provincial governor’s technical staff, said the victim was a former missionary of the Pontifical Institute of Foreign Missions (PIME) who was previously assigned in a few areas of the province and Cebu during the 90’s before he left the priesthood and started a pizza business in Dipolog City.
A jacket, sunglasses and the cardboard boxes the kidnappers concealed their M16 rifles in were recovered from the pizza parlor.
Police, air force helicopters and navy patrol boats are part of the search, though authorities say they don’t know who is responsible.
In this February 22, 2013 photo Italian Rolando del Torchio, former Roman Catholic missionary in the the southern Philippines and now a restaurant owner works at his Ur Choice restaurant in Dipolog city, southern Philippines.
Trinidad said the suspects abandoned their vehicle and transferred the victim into a motorized pumpboat that headed towards the coastal areas of the third district of the province.
Del Torchio’s abduction came after two Canadian tourists, a Norwegian and a Filipino woman were kidnapped last month from a marina on Samal Island in Davao del Norte province, also in the south. There has been no trace of the four.
Zamboanga del Norte Police Director Redentor Retusto was designated to head the task force, while Mayor Evelyn Uy was named the CMC chairperson.
The van sped off to Dipolog Boulevard, where two pumpboats were waiting.
Police said the gunmen entered Del Torchio’s pizzeria, inside the campus of Andres Bonifacio College, in the evening. He helped farmers hone their skills and set up cooperatives in poor communities, according to a colleague, Father Gianni Re.
Advertisement
“Let’s work together to bring [Del Torchio] back from his captors”, Ong said.
