BUTUAN, Philippines: Philippine tribal gunmen abducted 16 children and adults in a bizarre bid to have their leader released from prison after he was jailed for another mass kidnapping, police said Saturday. The kidnappers have threatened to kill their hostages, who include at least two students and were taken captive Friday from a number of schools in a remote town on the violence-plagued southern island of Mindanao, police said. “They should behave because if they continue to come into our area we will make an example out of the hostages,” the kidnappers' leader, Reyjoy Brital, told a negotiating team's mobile phone. Brital, a communist rebel who had since left the insurgency, is demanding the release of fellow Manobo tribesman Ondo Perez and three of his followers who were jailed for kidnapping 79 people from the same town in 2009. Government negotiators had promised not to arrest Perez and his men if he freed his hostages, who also included children. But police detained the abductors once all of the hostages were released after an ordeal that lasted four days and made international headlines. The kidnappers in the current crisis are all relatives of Perez, said Alvin Magdamit, mayor of La Prosperidad from where the 16 were abducted.
