Gunmen kidnap pastor-chief marshal

CAMP OLIVAS, Pampanga — A Baptist pastor, who is also the chief traffic marshal in Abucay, Bataan, was kidnapped by three unidentified armed men last Wednesday night, police said.

Superintendent Fe Grenas, Police Regional Office 3 (PRO3) spokesperson, identified the victim as Rolando Abanes, 48, chief of the Abucay Municipal Traffic Marshall Office (MTMO), and resident of Shine Subdivision Barangay Tuyo, Balanga City.

Quoting reports reaching the PRO3, Grenas said Abanes was about to park his service vehicle in front of the Abucay Cathedral near the MTMO headquarters in Barangay Laon around 8 p.m., when three men armed with long rifles alighted a white van nearby and dragged him into their vehicle.

Senior Insp. Edzel Carbongco, Abucay Municipal Police Station (MPS) chief, said the gunmen wore bonnets and that their white van had no license plates.

Carbongco also gathered that prior to his abduction, Abanes had been receiving death threats.

Last June 3, Carbongco disclosed that still unidentified motorcycleriding suspects lobbed a hand grenade at the garage of the residence of Abanes near the church, which the victim also supervises.

No one was hurt in the blast that caused shrapnel holes on the steel gate, rear bumper of a car, tricycle and galvanized iron roof of the garage that serves as entrance to the residence of the pastor’s family, according to initial reports.

Police said it was an MK2 handgrenade that exploded at the pastor’s church.

A relative of the victim who refused to be named theorized that the possible motive of abduction could be related to his work as the chief traffic marshall.

Chief Supt. Amador V. Corpus, PRO3 regional director (RD), has ordered Bataan provincial director, Senior Supt. Marcel Dayag, to immediately resolve the case and rescue the pastor-marshall alive.