Suspected Muslim militants were holding three crew members of a fishing boat in the southern Philippines for ransom, a police spokesman said Monday, dpa reported.
The suspected members of the Abu Sayyaf rebel group boarded the vessel off Jolo Island late Saturday, 1,000 kilometres south of Manila, and forcibly took its three crewmen to their motorized boat.
Chief Superintendent Agrimero Cruz said the suspects contacted the the owner of the vessel on Sunday and demanded a ransom in exchange for releasing the victims.
Cruz said the kidnappers were thought to have taken their captives to the jungles around Patikul town on Jolo Island, a known lair of the al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf rebels.
The group has been blamed for some of the country's worst terrorist attacks and high-profile kidnappings involving foreign hostages.