By Joel Guinto
INQUIRER.net
Last updated 05:36pm (Mla time) 01/01/2007
THE PHILIPPINE Navy rescued some 50 fishermen from a group of pirates who held them hostage for eleven hours in waters off the southern island chain of Tawi-Tawi Sunday, a military spokesman said.
Two Navy gun ships, the PS-38 and the PG-384, carrying some 45 troops, closed in on the two fishing boats at around 5:20 p.m. in the vicinity of Kangtipayan Dakula Island, scaring away the seven pirates who had held the fishermen, Navy spokesman Commander Giovanni Carlo Bacordo
said.
The pirates quickly returned to their ships and escaped without engaging the Navy troops, Bacordo said in a phone interview.
Led by a certain Siscar Bassal, the pirates had demanded P500 million for the release of the 50 fishermen, whom they seized in the same area earlier Sunday at around 6:30 a.m., Bacordo said.
Navy troops responded to the area after receiving radio messages, which one of the fishermen sent, unknown to their captors, Bacordo said.
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