Gunmen Hold Dozens at School in Philippines

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By CARLOS H. CONDE

MANILA — Gunmen took 75 people hostage at an elementary school in the southern Philippines on Thursday, later releasing 27, including all the children, officials said.

The standoff, about 500 miles south of Manila in a restive region that has been the scene of recent violence, began when 15 to 20 assailants took the hostages after police officials tried to serve an arrest warrant on one of their leaders, said Maj. Randolph Cabangbang, an army spokesman.

The leader, identified as Ondo Perez, is suspected of heading a criminal organization called the Perez Group and is wanted for the murder of a resident of the town of Prosperidad, in Agusan del Sur Province on the southeastern island of Mindanao.

Senior Superintendent Nestor Fajura, operations chief of the Philippine police in the region, told ABS-CBN television that Mr. Perez and his group took the hostages at a school in Prosperidad to prevent his arrest. Mr. Fajura said that the abductors were demanding the withdrawal of the murder charge against Mr. Perez and a halt to police and military operations against the group.

The hostage takers initially released 17 children and an older woman, Major Cabangbang said. Also among the hostages were a teacher and two employees of a logging company, he said. Police officials have not yet established the identities or the conditions of the remaining hostages, he said.

Early Friday, The Associated Press reported the release of nine more hostages, eight women and one man, reducing the number of captives to 48.

Major Cabangbang said negotiators had been sent to the village to try to persuade the men to surrender. “The situation remains fluid at this point,” he said by telephone.

Mr. Perez is a former member of a paramilitary group that the military armed and trained to help in counterinsurgency operations, police officials said.

Such groups have often been accused of criminality and human rights violations.

A recent massacre on Maguindanao Province, also in Mindanao, of 57 people — most of them journalists and media workers — was attributed to militiamen who the authorities say were under the command of Andal Ampatuan Jr., a scion of the province’s most influential family.