When Davao City Mayor Rody Duterte flew to Zamboanga City
last week to follow up the kidnapping of three foreigners and a Filipina from a
resort on Samal Island
He was, in fact, holding solid information that the victims
were no longer in the Davao
And, according to a very reliable source, the Philippine
Navy was able to track, through its new Vessel Tracking System or VTS, a pump
boat (motorized outrigger canoe) with the bow name “BAMA” the morning after the
abduction of Norwegian resort manager Kjartan Sekkingstad, Canadians John
Ridsdel and Robert Hall, and Hall’s Filipina girlfriend Maritess Flor.
The source said the fleeing vessel was also spotted by the
skipper of a naval civilian service boat hugging the shoreline because of rough
seas near Pundaguitan village in Governor Generoso town, Davao Oriental.
A naval intelligence report later indicated that “pings”
from the mobile phone of one of the victims had been picked by a cellular site
in Rio del Pilar, Glan, Sarangani, although it noted the location was uncertain
and “could have been at sea … or on land.”
Commodore Rafael Mariano, commander of Naval Forces Eastern
Mindanao would neither confirm nor deny the intelligence report, saying: “The
protocol calls for information about the kidnappings released only through the
PNP (Philippine National Police) joint task force headed by General Federico
Dulay of PRO (Police Regional Office) 11.”
Dulay, in turn, referred queires to Superintendent Antonio
Rivera, the regional police spokesman, who denied receiving the Navy
intelligence report.
Duterte went to Zamboanga Friday and confirmed
over his television program the following day that he received a verified
report that the kidnappers
and their victims arrived in Sulu 22 hours after leaving Samal.
This had also been confirmed to InterAksyon.com earlier by a
police intelligence source who later said the victims are being held in Parang
town and guarded
by a “composite” unit of 200 Abu Sayyaf gunmen under the command of
different sub-leaders.
The Navy’s VTS uses a global positioning system based on the
reception of special satellite transmissions that allows personnel in the
operations center to monitor and track the real-time location, speed and course
of target vessels.
The system utilizes at least two powerful radar stations in
the eastern side of Mindanao that are capable of picking up signals of naval
vessels, one in the village of Kamanga in Maasim, Sarangani and the other in
Davao Oriental.
These stations were set up reportedly with the technical
assistance of the US Navy under the Visiting Forces Agreement.
According to the Navy, the VTS “is indispensable to the
total force at sea and Fleet-in-being strategy, requires the real time picture
of the operational environment and the available and deployable forces present
in that area to execute a specific mission as the need arises.”
It is a complement to the Navy’s Coast Watch System, which
monitors vessel traffic and can identify transiting vessels.
Sources said intelligence officials reportedly sought
“American assistance” after receiving the Navy intelligence report but help
came only on Wednesday.
http://www.interaksyon.com/article/118292/samal-kidnappers-vessel-was-tracked-by-new-navy-system
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