Local Engineer Faces Kidnapping Charge

NAGA CITY (20 October) -LOCAL CONTRACTOR-ENGINEER Ramil Milano together with a certain Totoy Ona and five other suspects are now facing charges of Kidnap for Ransom filed before the Naga City Prosecutor's Office for the abduction and illegal detention of couple, Eliseo Cabautan Saturno, 49 and wife, Angelina Canlas Saturno, 60, contractors of the completed multi-million Naga City Coliseum.

Milano had reportedly sent feelers of surrender to the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) central office, according to director Ric Diaz on Monday (Oct. 18), but the suspect had not surfaced to give himself-up.

Meanwhile, Naga Police Director Vert Chavez had urged Milano to surrender and face the charges.

Sources at the Criminal Investigation and Detective Management Section of the Naga Police  Office (NCPO) bared however that the case will be validated and may ultimately reduced to a case of "Abduction and Intimidation" since no cash ransom had been involved in the alleged kidnapping of the couple.

Probers also remarked "that the supposed kidnapping was a case of contractors' partnership gone sour," the source said.

In a progress report filed at the NCPO, the kidnapping of the Saturno couple, contractor of the ITC Construction firm based in Manila, occurred last October 10 after Milano fetched the couple at the Naga Coliseum about 4:00 P.M., and using a Toyota Fortuner vehicle, drove towards the direction of  Daet, Camarines Norte.

According to the Saturno couple, when reaching the Maharlika Highway in Sipocot, Camarines Sur, they were met by six armed men who then took Mrs. Saturno to a separate vehicle while her husband remained with Milano in the Fortuner; both cars later drove back to Naga City that same afternoon, said the couple.

On October 12, Mrs. Saturno claimed to have escaped her abductors while they were asleep; her husband, in the meantime, had been brought to a drive-in in Naga City where Milano allegedly forced her husband to sign documents indicating a contract with a profit-sharing scheme in the construction of the Naga Coliseum at 50% payable to cash cheques dated Oct. 8 and Oct.11, each valued at P 5-Million.

Probers claimed in the report that allegedly Milano was not satisfied with the "finder's fee" earlier given to him which amounted to 1.5% of the total contract price of the Coliseum construction.

Saturno was released by his abductors at about 1:00 A.M. of October 13, and was rescued by Police intel unit at the Naga Coliseum, around 2:30 A.M. of the same date.

The couple also reported to the NCPO that personal belongings were taken from them by their abductors totalling P 734,000 in cash and valuables, which included jewelleries, wristwatches, cellphones, and cash worth P 400, 000. (SONNY SALES)