Philippines sends emissaries to get "proof of life"

MANILA, June 26 (Reuters) The Philippines sent three emissaries today to gunmen holding an Italian Catholic priest in the south, a general said, instructing them to get ''proof of life'' before any negotiations could be started.

Major-General Benjamin Dolorfino told reporters three Muslim men, who had helped free hostages in the past, left Iligan City for an undisclosed place in the Lanao provinces to open communications with the kidnappers of Giancarlo Bossi.

''We provided them with a cellular phone to find out if the priest is still alive and well,'' Dolorfino said, adding they would ask the kidnappers to allow Bossi to use the phone and speak to someone who knew his voice.

''Once 'proof of life' is established, we would make a decision to start negotiations to free the missionary. But, we would still ask our policy-makers to authorise us to deal with these people.'' Bossi, a 59-year-old Milan-born priest of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME), was abducted on June 10 after saying mass near his parish on the southern island of Mindanao.

The military suspects gunmen belonging to a rogue faction of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) have abducted Bossi. No ransom has yet been demanded.

Dolorfino said the mainstream MILF, the largest rebel group in the south of the mainly Roman Catholic country, has been helping in attempts to free Bossi, the fourth Italian priest to be kidnapped since the late 1990s.

Since 1997, the government and the MILF have been talking to end nearly 40 years of rebellion that has killed more than 120,000 people and displaced 2 million, slowing down growth in resource-rich Mindanao.

REUTERS SLD KP1336