Sporting long beards, Gringo Villaruz and Rod Allain Pagaling say luck and quick wit aided their escape from Abu Sayyaf militants on the remote southern island of Jolo
FREE. Rescued Philippine coast guard worker Gringo Villaruz
(L) and Alan Pagaling (2nd L-behind, with beard) are escorted out of the
hospital after they were rescued from Al-Qaeda militants, in the town of Jolo
on the Philippine southern island of Mindanao on August 20, 2015. AFP PHOTO
Two Philippine
coast guard men on Friday trembled and cried as they recalled their harrowing
four-month captivity under Islamic extremists who beheaded one of their fellow
hostages.
Sporting long
beards, Gringo Villaruz and Rod Allain Pagaling said luck and quick wit aided
their escape from Abu Sayyaf militants on the remote southern island of Jolo
"Each day I
felt like I was going to die," Pagaling told reporters shortly after
arriving in Manila
"It was very
difficult. We had nothing else to turn to except prayer."
The men, who were
abducted in May along with another hostage, were blindfolded, stripped of their
shirts and made to beg for their lives on their knees as their masked captors
held machetes to their necks.
A video of the
desperate plea was posted on the video-sharing website YouTube as the bandits
demanded an undisclosed ransom.
The decapitated
remains of the other hostage, Rodolfo Boligao, were found on a dark, deserted
Jolo highway last week.
The beheading
prompted elite military forces to launch a risky operation to free 11 hostages
held by the Al-Qaeda-linked militants -- including the two coastguard
officials, as well as two Malaysians, a Dutch national and a South Korean.
After the
military engaged the militants in a firefight late Wednesday, Villaruz and
Pagaling were able to slip away.
"The
fighting was so intense. There was no time to think hard," said Villaruz.
"We just
made a run for it while there was chaos all around."
Found an hour
apart, they did not know of each other's escape until they saw one another
Thursday at a local military hospital.
The Abu Sayyaf
militants are believed to be holding nine remaining hostages. Authorities are
continuing to pursue the group, said Captain Antonio Bulao, a military
spokesman in Jolo.
Fifteen Abu
Sayyaf militants died in the fighting on Wednesday.
Impoverished Jolo
is a known stronghold of the Abu Sayyaf, a loose band of several hundred armed
men set up in the 1990s with seed money from Osama Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda
network.
The group engages
in kidnappings to finance its operations, often targeting foreigners and
sometimes beheading captives if ransoms are not paid.
It has also been
blamed for the worst bomb attacks in the country, including the firebombing of
a ferry off Manila
Bay
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