On Monday afternoon, September 19th, 2011, a red Isuzu Adventure pulled into the car park at People's Agri Supply in the Capistrano Complex in Cagayan del Oro City's Barangay Gusa. As the driver left the SUV running three men exited the vehicle leaving behind a comrade who waited in the SUV's rear seat. Dressed in PNP, or Philippine National Police t-shirts and camoflogue fatigue pants and carrying 45 caliber pistols and one "baby Armalite" (CAR-15, a mini-M16) rifle they stopped at the entrance to talk to a private guard armed with a pump shotgun. Quickly disarming the guard and forcing him into the business' warehouse-like interior where they found Mr.Boniao deep in conversation with two of his employees.
Seeing his guard's shotgun in the hands of what appeared to be a police officer Mr.Boniao suddenly stopped in mid-conversation and stared at his guard and the three supposed police officers. One of the "police officers" asked the two employees speaking with Boniao to go to the rear of the store after divesting them of their cellphones. It was probably then that Mr.Boniao was struck with the sickening realisation that all was not well because his employees later said that Boniao appeared confused for a moment and then suddenly appeared defiant. Unable to hear the exchange between the three well armed men and their employer, the employees themselves were unaware of any imminent danger until Boniao suddenly raised his voice telling the men, "No, no, no! I'm not going anywhere!"
The commotion caused Boniao's 17 year old son Edwin to come from the business' rear storage area. When he appeared there were some quick words among the three kidnappers and one of the men drew down with his 45 caliber pistol on Edwin which caused Mr.Boniao to lunge at the man before a second of the kidnappers turned the barrel of his pistol towards Boniao who suddenly appeared drained of all strength. It was then that Edwin's mother came out of her office and saw her husband surrounded by three well armed and angry looking men. Turning her head and seeing the firm's security guard disarmed she must have realised that a kidnapping was taking place because she suddenly fainted and collapsed to the floor.
Too shocked to even react Boniao and Edwin complied with the kidnappers' demands and began moving towards the front entrance. Before stepping out into the carpark the men had a loud exchange concerning Boniao's teenaged son who apparently wasn't part of their plan. KFR, or Kidnap for Ransom groups are almost always very highly structured organisations founded by ex or current insurgents. Organised along the lines of the larger insurgent armies KFR groups organise themselves in cell-like fashion with only one or two members ever knowing the complete picture from top to bottom. The actual kidnappers at the point of abduction are contract labour. They merely are informed of the target hours before the actual abduction takes place with the lengthly footwork and surveillance having been undertaken by actual members of the KFR group. Once the contractors abduct their victim they are given a location well known to them as their destination point to drop off the victim. There the victim is taken by actual members of the KFR group and transported, in most cases by water, to a second location.
At that second location the victim is handed off to a third team who then transports him or her to an organisational safehouse, usually a family's home where the victim is confined but otherwise treated fairly well. From that first safehouse the victim will be shunted towards various other locations and if ransom negotiations are long winded will almost alwats be sold up the foodchain to allied groups. In these kidnappings of longer duration the victim's living conditions rapidly deteriorate until they are living deep in the bush just as insurgents do. There are minor variations in this rift but that is the general scenario in all Mindanowan KFRs EXCEPT for the relatively small number directly committed by the ASG, or Abu Sayyaf Group or those victims that eventually end up with the Islamo-fascist insurgents cum terrorists. Victims who end up with the Abu Sayyaf either by direct abduction or by having been sold to them endure very poor conditions and run the very real risk of death, usually by decapitation if killed by Abu Sayyaf themselves or from so called "rescue attempts" by minimally trained Government forces.
So it was that Mr. Boniao's kidnappers released his teenaged son Edwin, not having been ordered to abduct him and not daring to incur the wrath of their very powerful employer(s). Taking their sole victim, Mr.Boniao, out of the building and into the carpark they very quickly bundled him into the rear of the idling vehicle where the waiting member quickly placed a hood over his head as the three kidnappers climbed in along side Mr.Boniao. The SUV then exited at a high rate of speed and was last seen speeding down National Hiway heading east into Barangay Puerto where they presumably dropped their victim at a seaside location for waterborne transport that eventually brought Mr.Boniao out of Misamis Oriental Province and into Lanao del Sur Province where he will be kept. Very well worth noting is that the liscence plate on the kidnappers' vehicle, SEZ-205, denotes a government owned vehicle (all "S" series plates are government issue only). The jist is that the assailants just may have owned those "fake" police uniforms they wore. With the very recent arrest of a police unit on Luzon for the very same crime it is a very important consideration.
Interestingly, the Mayor of Cagayan del Oro City, Vicente Emano did not supress news of the kidnapping. Emano and Boniao are personal associates, even friends if you take Mayor Emano's word on it. The one thing no knowledgable person in the Philippines wants is the publiscising of a loved one's kidnapping. For reasons I have explained ad naseum in umpteenth other KFR entries, it increases both the duration AND the ransom of particular kidnappings. To boot, politicians like Mayor Emano have nothing to gain by allowing their municipality to be linked to any kidnapping. It drives down investment and that Philippine byword, development in a very real way. Yet here was Emano not only confirming that this kidnapping had taken place but he actually went and held a press conference which naturally ups the cachet of the kidnapping by several degrees.
Perhaps more interestingly, Mayor Emano "asked" why Bonia would have been targeted since "his business is in trouble" and he "isn't (even) very rich." The fact of the matter is that Boniao is a player on the Nothern Mindanao real estate market having even been a major partner in the Alegria Hills subdivision that broke ground in 2007. The main partner in that extremely lucrative endeavour, on 54 hectares spanning three different barangays, is none other than the Ayala Group, the pre-eminent real estate developer in the Philippines. In addition Mr.Boniao has been instrumental in other endeavours such as OPIANM, or the Oil Palm Industry Association of Northern Mindanao, of which he has been President for well over a decade. In 2003 then-President Gloria M.Arroyo gave the organisation a hefty P84 Million ($880,000) to convert a portion of the region's agricultural lands into Oil Palm groves. Most of the targeted land of course lay fallow but that is par for the course in the Philippines. Ergo, Mayor Emano, already facing graft charges (for the fifth time in seven years) may end up like his compatriot in Cotabato City, Vice Mayor Muslimin Sema, being charged with KFR.
The day after the kidnapping of Mr.Boniao his familiy received the opening gambit in what promises to be a lenghtly process if the initial demand is indicative, and it almost always is. The kidnappers are initially demanding P100 Million ($2,200,000).
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