President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday, August 7, created a team of Filipino officials to secure the release of the three Filipino nationals abducted in Libya.
Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque revealed that among the members of the team are Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III, presidential adviser on overseas Filipino workers concerns Abdullah Mama-o, and Mindanao Development Authority Secretary Datu Abul Khayr Dangcal Alonto.
“We have formed a high-level all cabinet member team to deal with Libyan government and help in effort to recover two of our countrymen who were kidnapped together with a South Korean national,” Roque said during a Palace press briefing.
Roque said that Duterte eventually decided to follow the advice of his Cabinet to form a team of Filipino officials, instead of sending a warship to Libya to show that the government is taking the “plight of the Filipino OFWs very seriously”.
The presidential spokesperson, however, noted that the process of securing the release of the Filipino nationals will be complicated as the kidnappers are “militias who are engaged in an armed conflict also with the Libyan government.”
In July, three Filipino nationals and one Korean national were abducted while working at a water plant in south eastern Libya.
A video released by The Libya Observer shows the abducted foreign nationals crying for help from the Philippine and Korean government.
The four abducted men are lined up sharing a bottle of water while being guarded by a masked armed man behind them.
“Mr. President, please help us. We don’t have anything. We don’t have food. We don’t have medicine. Please help us, we are already suffering,” one of the Filipino men pleaded.
