The Philippine government would abandon talks with the Abu Sayyaf Muslim guerrillas and take action against them if they persisted in taking new hostages.
Presidential spokesman Ricardo Puno issued the threat on Tuesday after the gunmen seized three Malaysian hostages during a Sunday raid across the border in Pandanan island -- just as Philippine negotiators were about to resolve a hostage crisis which began on Malaysia's Sipadan island in April.
"The more the Abu Sayyaf confirms that this is going to be an ongoing activity on their part," the Estrada spokesman told reporters, "the more they make it difficult to keep on talking about peaceful resolutions on this matter."
Puno refused to discuss the specific actions mooted, saying: "You can let your imaginations fly and I would not blame you if you did so.
"Because at this point, you are right, you are exactly right, the options are really getting limited. There are really very few other options that can be taken by the government and the Abu Sayyaf is forcing the government into these options."
Manila has used Libya's connections with the gunmen as well as promises of Libyan "development aid" to persuade them to free 10 Western captives from the Sipadan raid as well as a French journalist.
Both countries were working to bring out two other French journalists when the Abu Sayyaf mounted another raid to replenish hostages, which also include an American man and 16 Filipinos.
"Obviously we cannot be relying on third countries to solve our problems for us and we do not intend to let them solve our problems for us," Puno said.
"The Abu Sayyaf should not think that they have endless opportunities to be able to keep replenishing their so-called inventory of hostages. This is simply not going to happen and the government is not going to tolerate this."-- MANILA (AFP)
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