Manila Commandos Free Kidnaped Californian : Philippines: Dramatic series of bloody raids leaves 14 people dead.

Kidnaped California oil executive Michael L. Barnes was rescued by Philippine police commandos Wednesday after a dramatic series of bloody raids across Manila that left up to 14 people dead.

Barnes was unharmed despite a tense shootout in the suburban Las Pinas bungalow where he had been kept chained to a bed, frequently blindfolded, by suspected Communist guerrillas for the last 61 days. Police said they shot a man who was holding Barnes by the neck and pointing a gun at his head when they stormed in.

Barnes, 41, appeared gaunt and haggard at a brief press conference several hours later at the national police headquarters.

“I’m just very glad to be back safe and sound,” he said in a shaky voice. “Thank you very much.”

Barnes, who once lived in Long Beach, is vice president and general manager of Philippine Geothermal Inc., a subsidiary of the Los Angeles-based energy resources giant Unocal Corp. He was kidnaped at gunpoint outside his office in Manila’s financial district Jan. 17.

Police said the kidnapers had demanded a $20-million ransom but no money was paid. The kidnapers called themselves the Red Scorpion Group, a previously unheard of name. U.S. and Philippine officials maintained that the kidnapers are really members of the Alex Boncayao Brigade, the urban terrorist wing of the Communist New People’s Army.

The rebels denied the kidnaping, however, blaming it on a splinter group that has turned to kidnaping and bank robbery in collusion with corrupt police. The alleged leader, Alfredo de Leon, was arrested last November on charges of kidnaping Chinese-Filipino businessmen but mysteriously escaped shortly afterward. He was not among those killed Wednesday.

“It seems to me these thugs wrapped themselves in ideology,” said U.S. Embassy spokesman Morton Smith. “But it looks like they were just out for the bucks.”

Carol Scott, a Unocal spokeswoman here, said Barnes had been chained by one arm to a bed for the last two months. But she said he had been well fed, given several sets of clothes and “appears in good shape, mentally and physically.”

She said he quickly shaved the beard he grew in captivity and asked for a fresh salad for lunch. “He really wanted some vegetables,” she said.

Barnes was expected to leave the Philippines today with his wife, Laura, and a son after undergoing further medical tests, Scott said.

Unocal used private security agents from Hong Kong to help investigate the kidnaping and negotiate Barnes’ release, sources said. The company received a videotape of Barnes shortly after his abduction, showing him guarded by hooded men armed with AK-47 assault rifles. U.S. Ambassador Frank Wisner publicly denied the kidnapers’ charge that Barnes is a CIA agent.

Police said SWAT teams in Task Force Gemini raided five suspected hide-outs across Manila beginning about 3 a.m. Wednesday. National Police Chief Cesar Nazareno said the decision was made after police monitored a call that the kidnapers said would be “their last.”

“Although we had an inkling of where Mr. Barnes was held, we could not be sure,” Nazareno said. “So we hit several targets.”

“It was the closest thing to Lebanon we’ve seen around here,” said embassy spokesman Smith.

Local television reports Wednesday evening showed bodies strewn at several of the locations. It was not immediately clear if all those killed in the raids were involved in the kidnaping, however, or why so many were killed and so few captured.

The precise death toll was also unclear, since senior police officials variously announced that 10 to 14 people had been killed. At least two women were arrested and three police officers wounded, officials said.

Barnes’ case was the most publicized of a series of kidnapings that have plagued the Philippines and frightened foreign residents and businessmen in recent months. A visiting Colorado gold hunter, Arvey D. Drown, has been held by leftist rebels in northern Luzon since October, 1990.

In the southern Philippines, Muslim bandits on Wednesday freed 3-year-old Elise Cook, daughter of a Protestant missionary from Australia, but kept her mother, her 5-year-old sister and two American women in captivity, the military announced.

A local congressman was reportedly negotiating for their release. They were abducted at gunpoint Tuesday afternoon while sightseeing on violence-torn Sulu island, 600 miles south of Manila.