3 Captives Rescued From Philippine Rebels

Philippine soldiers said Saturday that they rescued three Filipino hostages who had been held for two months by a gang of Muslim rebels that has beheaded at least a dozen of its other victims.

Troops attacked the rebels on the island of Basilan and freed the three men a day after Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo ordered an investigation into charges that senior military commanders were collaborating with the kidnappers.

The Abu Sayyaf rebels, who have operated for years in the southern Philippines, still hold about 18 hostages captured in raids on Basilan and the island of Palawan. Among them are two Kansas missionaries, Martin and Gracia Burnham.

The rebels say they beheaded Guillermo Sobero, a third American hostage. The Corona, Calif., resident’s body has not been recovered.

Philippine army Col. Hermogenes Esperon said troops engaged in three clashes with the guerrillas late Friday and early Saturday. A “running gun battle erupted as the troops stuck close to the fleeing bandits and rescued three of the victims,” he said.

The soldiers saw the guerrillas escape with 10 other hostages, Esperon said. Two rebels were captured during the fighting.

The three rescued Filipinos, Vicente Perillo Sr. and his sons, Vicente Jr. and Fernando, had been kidnapped in June from a plantation on Basilan, about 550 miles south of Manila.

The three coconut farmers said government troops had come within yards of them and their captors several times during their captivity.

“They were just ordered to lie low and keep quiet,” Esperon said.

National Security Advisor Roilo Golez said in a television interview in Manila that the farmers were being held on the western side of the island separate from the group of hostages that includes the Americans.

Abu Sayyaf, which means Father of the Sword, has an estimated 1,000 fighters and professes to be battling for an Islamic state in the south of the mainly Roman Catholic Philippines. However, kidnapping for ransom is the group’s main activity and the government calls the rebels “bandits.”

About 5,000 troops have been hunting the rebels since May, when the Abu Sayyaf staged a daring raid on a tourist resort on the island of Palawan and captured 20 people, including the three Americans.

Several of those hostages were freed, reportedly for ransom, while others apparently escaped. At least four of them have been killed.

In early June, soldiers appeared to have trapped the kidnappers and their victims in the town of Lamitan on Basilan island, but the rebels managed to escaped with most of their captives.

Last week, Catholic priest Cirilo Nacorda, who has twice been held hostage by the rebels, charged that five top military commanders allowed the rebels to escape after the exchange of an attache case full of 1,000-peso notes.

The allegations have been supported by Sen. Rodolfo Biazon, a former army general who said he had witnesses.

Arroyo said she doubted the charges but ordered her top military commanders to investigate.

“This [rescue] is again another proof of the effectiveness of the pressure being exerted by the military,” Golez said. “So far, so good.”