MINDANAO, Philippines, June 15 (UPI) -- Philippines authorities say they're talking with a TV cameraman freed by kidnappers who still hold other members of his news crew hostage in Mindanao.
The cameraman, Angelo Valderama, was released Saturday, one week after he, reporter Ces Drilon, fellow cameraman Jimmy Encarnacion and Mindanao State University professor Octavio Dinampo were kidnapped by members of the Abu Sayyaf Muslim separatist group, Inquirer.net reported.
An official of the ABS-CBN television network, for whom the crew was working, told the Web site Valderama and his family had "already communicated" on the phone and the network was working to bring Valderama, Drilon and Encarnacion back to Manila as a team.
Meanwhile, a local mayor conducting hostage negotiations with Abu Sayyaf said the popular Drilon appeared to be in good spirits when he last talked to her on a cell phone.
"She sounded happy," the mayor told Inquirer.net, adding that in past calls, "whenever I received a call from her through her captors, she sounded so worried, very tense, and sometimes she cried."
