Philippines gunmen release businessman, daughter

Manila: Kidnappers lowered their ransom demand from 40 million pesos (Dh3.6 million) to 5 million pesos which paved the way for the release on Sunday of a 50-year old businessman and his 10-year-old daughter in the southern Philippines, said a local paper.

"The kidnappers also realised that the government is doing everything to get back Wilson Tan and his daughter Jennifer," a businessman who requested for anonymity told the Star. The ransom demand was lowered because of negotiations made by local government officials and representatives of the kidnappers, identified as the Pentagon kidnap-for-ransom-group headed by Myangkang Saguile, other sources told Gulf News.

Local government officials and social workers found Tan and his daughter in Brar village in Maguindanao's Talayan town at 9.30 Sunday evening. They were immediately turned over to Tan's father-in-law on the same evening, Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Ponce, spokesman of the Army's 6th Infantry Division said in a belated report yesterday.

"The father and daughter were brought to a hospital for a check-up although both looked fine. Tan had minor wounds on his feet," said Cotabato Mayor Muslimin Sema.

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front, helped the military and the police in tracking down the kidnappers, said Mayor Sema.