By Manny Mogato and Rosemarie Francisco
MANILA (Reuters) - A Filipina Red Cross worker walked to freedom on Thursday after 2- months of captivity in the southern Philippines, but an Islamic militant group continued to hold her two European colleagues, officials said.
Her release boosted hopes the other hostages could be freed soon.
"After we got one, it's now easier to get the two," Senator Richard Gordon, the Philippine National Red Cross chief, said in a television interview, adding that no ransom had been given.
Wearing a Muslim head scarf, a blue jacket, and muddied rubber shoes, Filipina engineer Mary Jean Lacaba was left by her captors in a remote village on the southern island of Jolo where local government and military officials then picked her up.
"She appeared dazed and looked very tired when we found her," Colonel Eugene Clemen, commander of Marine forces on Jolo, told reporters.
Lacaba was immediately brought to a military hospital and was fed with porridge and water.
Nur-Ana Sahidulla, vice-governor of Sulu province covering Jolo, was among those who fetched Lacaba and said the Filipina was the one targeted for beheading by the Abu Sayyaf rebel group.
"Probably with our prayers, they changed their minds," Sahidulla said in a radio interview.
The rebels had threatened to behead one of the hostages on Tuesday unless there was troop withdrawal from much of Jolo island. Officials ignored the demand.
"We are extremely happy. She appears to be in good health, albeit tired," International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) spokesman Florian Westphal said in Geneva, where the neutral humanitarian organisation is headquartered.
Lacaba has reported the other two kidnapped ICRC workers were alive at the time she left them, Westphal said, telling Reuters: "There is a proof of life in that sense."
The kidnappers are still holding Swiss national Andreas Notter and Italian Eugenio Vagni.
The ICRC workers were abducted on January 15 after a visit to a local prison where the Red Cross was funding a water project.
The Abu Sayyaf, a small but violent militant group based on Jolo and the nearby island of Basilan, has been linked to the Southeast Asian regional militant network Jemaah Islamiah and to al Qaeda.
Abu Sayyaf has been blamed for the worst terrorist attack in the Philippines, the bombing of a ferry in Manila Bay in 2004 that killed 100 people.
(Additional reporting by Laura MacInnis in GENEVA; Editing by Jerry Norton)