MikeLigalig.com

By Jeoffrey Maitem
Mindanao Bureau, PDI

Mindanao autonomous region police said Saturday they were certain that followers of rogue Moro rebel leader Abdullah Macapaar, alias Commander Bravo, were behind Thursday's kidnapping of a university official in the southern Philippines.

Chief Superintendent Bensali Jabarani, police chief of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, did not say how authorities managed to confirm the identity of the kidnappers but added that a joint police and military operation to rescue Hipolito Miñoza had already been launched in Pualas and Piagapo towns.

The 54-year-old Miñoza, budget officer of the state-run Mindanao State University, was driving home with his wife to Iligan City from the university campus in Marawi City when armed men flagged down his car and seized him in the village of Bubong in Saguiaran, Lanao del Norte around 3:45 p.m. Thursday.