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Mae Murcia, a member of the mayor’s staff, said the mayor was found walking alone by a village resident in Barangay Pahilahan in Pola at past 9 p.m. The villager, whose name Murcia was not able to get, recognized the mayor and accompanied him to his residence at the town center of Pola..

Murcia said the mayor was in shock and could not narrate exactly what happened before, during and after his captivity.

The mayor’s staff said there was no word yet on what happened to the two police escorts who were seized along with the mayor.

Aranas had no physical injuries when found, said Murcia.

About 15 suspected communist rebels seized the re-electionist mayor and two police escorts after a fierce gun battle in which two of his escorts were killed in Pola Friday afternoon, a witness said.

Aranas and at least eight of his armed bodyguards had just attended a reunion of the family of Dr. Leonides Soria when they engaged a group of heavily armed New People’s Army guerrillas in a gunfight at around 3 p.m., Soria said.

A few days before the May 10, 2004 elections, Aranas was also abducted by NPA guerillas after he supposedly failed to pay “permit to campaign” fees (PTC) demanded by the rebel group. He was released a few days later after paying a still undetermined amount of money.

In a mobile phone interview with the Inquirer, Soria said the mayor, who was the guest of honor during the reunion of his clan, had just left his house in the village of Matula-tula to attend a campaign sortie when the security escorts of the mayor saw a band of armed men.

The mountain village is about 15 kilometers from the town proper.

Soria said residents told the mayor’s group that the armed men were NPA fighters.

"Upon seeing the rebels, the mayor’s escorts fired at them. They were trying to protect the mayor from the NPAs," he said.

Soria said Aranas and his group decided to retreat and take cover at his house after sensing that they were overpowered by the rebels.

"The exchange of gunfire was deafening. We were really scared," Soria said.

In a separate mobile phone conversation, Col. Romeo Chan, commanding officer of the 204th Brigade of the Philippine Army, confirmed to the Inquirer that Aranas and his men were caught in a gunfight with the rebels but he could not provide details.

Soria said Aranas and his two bodyguards went inside one of the rooms of the house as they continued to shoot it out with the rebels. He said the mayor was armed with a pistol.

Soria said the mayor decided to surrender at around 4:45 p.m. after they ran out of ammunition. He said Aranas also wanted to surrender to prevent further bloodshed.

"The mayor was forced to surrender because they were trapped inside in our house,” he added.

After the firing, according to Soria, two of the mayor’s bodyguards were confirmed dead. He identified them as a certain Dimaano and Molina, both said to be from the Philippine Army.

Soria said the guerrillas immediately went inside the house after they heard Aranas’ plea.

Soria said the rebels then asked him and some 30 other relatives to go out of the house.

"The rebels said they were just after the mayor," Soria said, adding that he heard one rebel berating Aranas.

"The rebels said they were angered by the decision of the mayor to bring soldiers during his campaign,” he said.

Upon clearing the area, Soria said the rebels took Aranas and two police escorts with them at gunpoint.

He said the NPA rebels allowed the two drivers and two other civilian bodyguards of Aranas to go free.

Soria said it took a while before the military and police reinforcements arrived in the area.

Earlier, Murcia, a member of the mayor’s staff, told the Inquirer in a telephone interview that she spoke to Aranas at around 4 p.m. when the mayor called her to inform her rebels were in the area and to call for reinforcements from the military and police. She last talked to the mayor about 30 minutes later.

The Inquirer tried but failed to contact Aranas on his cellular phone.

Aranas, who is running for a third term as mayor, was taken by NPA rebels in Barangay Biga a few days before the 2004 local elections after he failed to pay the so-called “permit to campaign” fee allegedly demanded by the communist group.

He was eventually released after paying a still undetermined amount of money to the NPA.

Murcia said the mayor has been receiving threats on his life from the NPA. She did not elaborate.

But reports said Aranas got the ire of the rebels after he failed to pay part of the PTC he owed the rebels from the last elections.

Pola, a small coastal town in the south of Oriental Mindoro, is also the hometown of Vice President Noli de Castro