JOLO, Philippines (AFP) — Islamic militants holding a television presenter hostage in the southern Philippines cut off all contact hours before a Tuesday ransom deadline expired, a negotiator said.
Alvarez Isnaji said he was working to secure safe passage from authorities for an emissary to try to reach the kidnappers of ABS-CBN network host Cecilia "Ces" Drilon, 46, and her two colleagues before the noon (0400 GMT) deadline.
The Abu Sayyaf gunmen are believed to have given Drilon's family until that time to pay a ransom thought to be about 1.12 million dollars.
"I have been trying to get in touch with them since yesterday," Isnaji told DZBB radio in Manila. "I have sent them (mobile phone) text messages hoping that they would reply, but they have not."
ABS-CBN television journalist Ces Drilon, her cameramen Jimmy Encarnacion and Angelo Valderama, and university professor Octavio Dinampo, were heading to a secret meeting in Jolo island with a senior Abu Sayyaf leader when they were seized on June 8.
The abductors freed Valderama on June 12 after a ransom of 100,000 pesos (about 2,250 dollars) was paid.
President Gloria Arroyo has ordered police and troops to recover the hostages alive, and military reinforcements arrived in the area on Sunday.
The small group of militants, founded with seed money provided by Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in the early 1990s, have been blamed for the country's worst terrorist attacks as well as for kidnappings of western tourists and Christian missionaries.
Isnaji said the kidnappers told him during their last telephone contact early Monday: "If our deadline does not produce a result we will implement our policy regarding the hostages."
Isnaji did not elaborate. He said Monday that the kidnappers had threatened to harm the hostages if the ransom was not paid by Tuesday.
The negotiator said he also spoke with Drilon on Monday, when the broadcaster told him the gunmen were tying up the male hostages with rope.
"They are tying up Jimmy and the professor," he quoted her as saying.
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