Six suspects, four posing as customers, kidnapped Rolando del Torchio in a swift raid that shocked the dinnertime crowd at his pizzeria in the sleepy port city of Dipolog on Wednesday, a regional military spokesman said.
The group bundled the 56-year-old into a waiting van then sped off to Manukan town some 50 kilometres (30 miles) away, where they transferred to a motorboat, Captain Roy Vincent Trinidad told AFP.
Navy ships have been alerted to intercept the bandits after intelligence indicated the boat had navigated along the Zamboanga peninsula coastline towards the southwestern island of Jolo, some 400 kilometres away, he added.
Jolo is the main base of Al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf, which has been blamed for the Philippine's deadliest terror attacks, beheadings and kidnappings of foreign tourists and Christian missionaries.
“All kidnappings in the peninsula end up in Jolo. That's the pattern,” Trinidad said.
“Hostages taken in the area are eventually turned over to the Abu Sayyaf.”
The rag-tag Abu Sayyaf has engaged in frequent kidnappings of locals as well foreigners in often successful efforts to extort ransoms.
A Filipino village chief who was seized from the same southwestern peninsula in May was found beheaded on a Jolo highway three months later after the government refused to pay.
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