Friday night, November 18th, 2011, Leopoldo "Ronnie" Cabaya took a rare evening off from his studies to enjoy a local barangay fiesta near his home in the municipality of Aleosan, in North Cotabato Province. With his days spent as a servant to a well to do family in the adjacent municipality of Midsayap, and most evenings spent studying at Southern Christian College in that same town, Ronnie's chances to relax came far and between. Still, when he finally graduated and found suitable work as an accountant it would all be worth it.
At just past midnite, Saturday, Ronnie found a "habal habal," or motorcycle taxi, to catch a ride back to Midsayap so that he could be ready for work later on that morning. As the motorcycle sped down Aleosan Kidapawan Hiway a another motorcycle passed them at a high rate of speed, carrying a passenger on the back riding tandem, the habal habal driver noticed both men on the other motorcycle were staring at them very intently before they accelerated far ahead of them. Suddenly, upahead, at Crossing Dualing, in Barangay Dualing,the driver saw that the road had been blocked by a pickup truck and two motorcycles parked lengthwise over the breadth of the road. Slowing down, thinking that it was an accident, by the time the driver realised what was really taking place it was too late to flee. Several men already had M16s and AK47s trained on him and his passenger.
As the driver was sitting there, unsure of his next course of action, four of the gunmen hurriedly ran over and grabbed his passenger, Ronnie, off of the rear of the habal habal and frog marched him over to the pickup truck, which then quickly sped off into the dark. As the impromptu checkpoint quickly disappeared the habal habal driver immediately proceeded to the Aleosan MPO, or Municipal Police Office. As he was quickly debriefed by the duty officer he recalled a strange comment made by one of the kidnappers to another, saying they had finally "captured the mayor's son." At once the dduty officer asked the habal habal driver, now the only eyewitness to a kidnapping, to examine a photo and tell him whether or not the man in the photograph looked familiar.
Startled, the driver admitted that that had been his passenger, the young man who had just been kidnapped. The officer immediately phoned the Mayor of Aleosan, Loreto Cabaya, and after apologising for calling at such an impolite hour, asked the Mayor if he knew the whereabouts of his son Jason. Mayor Cabayas answered in the affirmative and informed the duty officer that his son Jason was asleep in front of him, on the "sala" (livingroom) sofa. Perplexed, the duty officer explained about the kidnapping and how the habal habal driver had identified the victim as Jason. Moreover, the officer said, one of the kidnappers had told one of his accomplices that they had just snared the Mayor's son.
Almost immediately the Mayor surmised what had happened but told the officer to hold on for a few moments as he checked on some very important information. Calling a relative he discovered that his nephew Leopoldo "Ronnie" Cabayas had failed to return home from a barangay fiesta. Immediately informing the duty officer that the victim wasn't his son, but rather his nephew, the MPO immediately implemented checkpoints along major roads but it was too late. The pickup truck was last seen driving into Aleosan's Barangay Dungguan, was soon discovered next to a creek, having been set on fire as the gunmen headed into Liguasan Marsh by boat.
Apparently thr victim of mistaken identity, Ronnie's destitute parents have already been contacted by the kidnappers" negotiator who opened with the usual ridiculous gambit of P20 Million ($450,000). Ronnie doesn't work as a servant as a hobby. He does so because he is destitute. Hopefully his captors will not kill him when they discover this.
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