MANILA, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Hooded gunmen killed a Catholic priest in the restive south of the Philippines in a botched kidnapping attempt, officials said on Wednesday.

The men took away a local teacher seized along with Father Rey Roda, a parish priest on Tawi-tawi, a remote Muslim island in the southernmost tip of the archipelago, late on Tuesday.

"The reports indicated that Fr. Roda resisted and he was gunned down and killed," chief superintendent Joel Goltiao said.

"There are pursuit operations going on."

Muslim militants use Tawi-tawi and nearby Jolo as bases and banditry and kidnap-for-ransom are common on the islands.

Roda, 55, was the third missionary killed in the region since 1997.

The Philippines is a largely Catholic country but a Muslim minority in the south has been fighting for decades for some measure of self-rule.

(Reporting by Carmel Crimmins; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

AlertNet news is provided by