|
Manila/Mindanao: Torture, near-death experiences, and the need to better understand their Islamist captors alternated as topics when two staffers of television channel ABS CBN and their peace activist "guide" recounted their abduction in the southern Philippines.
"They would hit us on the head with their guns. They tied our hands. Several times, they threatened to behead me. Every day, I thought my life would end," said cameraman Jimmy Encarnacion, who was freed by the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) in Indanan, Sulu along with television presenter Ces Drilon and Professor Octavio Dinampo past midnight of Tuesday.
"They took all our things, everything from cameras to plastic bags," said Encarnacion during a press conference at the domestic airport in suburban Pasay City last afternoon.
Child fighters
Drilon said: "I saw 12, 15, and 17-year old bandits holding high-powered firearms," said Drilon.
Narrating her 10-day ordeal as a hostage, Drilon said, "I slept on a sack on the ground, protected only by the tent over my head.
"When we ate, about four people shared a pack of noodles.
"We also had to put up with the giant mosquitoes," said Drilon, her face and arms betraying a rash of mosquito bites. "Being held hostage, I think, was the toughest trial I ever had in my life. I kept wondering whether I would make it back," she said.
"I feel happy after our release. All of us could not stop smiling on the plane," she recalled.
Senator Loren Legarda, formerly a broadcast journalist with ABS CBN, recalled: "For days, Ces would call me up in the morning, and say, 'They slap me.' She would say, 'Tell me if you're coming or not so that I can accept my fate'."
Drilon clarified that she had acted on her own when she enlisted Professor Dinampo to take her to the mountain lair of the ASG.
"My company did not sanction my plan. I placed the lives of my colleagues in danger. I disregarded warnings," she said, admitting she had the habit of "dying for a story".
"I learned many lessons: I learnt to trust my team and to heed advice from my superiors... My family and my company will no longer allow me to cover Sulu."
Despite her ordeal, Drilon empathised with the ASG, a marginalised but militant group fighting for the establishment of an independent Islamic state in Mindanao.
"It (being taken hostage) opened my eyes as to why they are like that. There is a kind of environment that makes them that way," she said.
"Professor Dinampo has been talking about Radula Sahiron as the new ASG leader. I heard that Sahiron wanted to surrender. Prof Dinampo saw an opportunity for the government to launch negotiations with the ASG. I too had been pursuing the same goal," Drilon explained.
"We (the team) and Professor Dinampo were not naive. Maybe we were romanticising our coverage of the terrorists. Professor Dinampo was the last one to interview Khadafy Janjalani before the latter died in Sulu in late 2007," she said.
Senator Legarda said she had been negotiating with the ASG members for five days, from Manila. "It was effective that way. Ces would call me up to negotiate. She would let me talk to the kidnappers. She would put the speaker on. I cajoled the kidnappers. I pleaded with them," said Legarda.
"Ces would say 'they are asking for something for my release.' But no ransom was discussed for the freedom of those kidnapped (during our negotiations)," said Legarda.
Earlier, media reports had hinted that Drilon's family had offered to pay out 12 million pesos (Dh1 million) for her release after the ASG apparently lowered their demand from 30 million pesos to P 15 million for the freedom of their three captives.
Angelo Valderama, an ABS CBN employee who was released on June 12 after the June 8 kidnapping in Sulu, joined Drilon and Encarnacion at the press conference. "I was warned that I would be decapitated," he recalled.
With inputs from Ed General, Correspondent
|
