LOS ANGELES, 22 June — The ongoing Abu Sayyaf kidnapping saga continues with the Philippine military chasing the bandits with their captives through the jungles of Basilan. Reports say that one of the American hostages, Guillermo Sobero, has died either by having his head chopped off or from an infected wound that wouldn’t heal because he was allegedly diabetic. Abu Sabaya, a spokesman of the Abu Sayyaf, told a privately owned Mindanao radio station that the military would find his body, but they never did. Sobero’s brother in California insisted that his brother wasn’t diabetic.
What is for sure in all of this is that the Philippine public has grown weary of kidnappings. The Abu Sayyaf may have had a little sympathy among some Muslims last year when they kidnapped their first batch of hostages, but this sympathy dried up fast as the group showed how bloodthirsty they could be, after executing many of their hostages, and how greedy they really are, after demanding and getting millions of dollars from Libya last year.
Even the Moro Islamic Liberation Front has distanced itself from the group’s actions, the MILF’s spokesman saying that kidnapping for ransom was an un-Islamic act. Even the unarmed Muslim civilians in Basilan are fed up with having to dodge both the Abu Sayyaf bandits and the military forces that run after them. Both groups strike fear in civilians who are prone to their harassment and thievery at checkpoints or when they invade their humble homes.
Many are forced to flee areas of conflict, and in a sense become permanent refugees living from one kidnapping incident to the next. President Gloria Arroyo has now chosen not to discuss every move of the government in public vis-à-vis these latest kidnappings, which is a wise decision. The Abu Sayyaf seem to thrive on the undue media publicity their outrageous and cruel stunts generate. The group demanded that a former Malaysian senator be included in the government’s negotiating team, a demand that the government first rejected, then seemingly accepted, and then rejected once more.
This flip-flopping by the government is not good, as it gives the impression that no one is really in charge. Instead of thinking out loud in public, the government should act fast but discuss things privately.
I know the government wants to give the impression that it is carefully studying every option placed before it, but this is being interpreted as a sign of weakness. The president should tell her spokesman Bobi Tiglao to remain tightlipped on this crisis. The government should always anticipate the next move and demand of the Abu Sayyaf, and be one step ahead of the bandits. After last year’s protracted kidnapping incident, the government surely has a lot of experience in this regard.
The problem that the president faces is one similar to all national insurgencies: The enemy is from within, and the Abu Sayyaf being Filipinos means they can easily blend in with the civilian population whenever they want to, especially if the population is sympathetic to their cause or afraid of their power. Gloria must tread a very fine line in deploying the military in Basilan: If she allows the soldiers to run helter-skelter over villages she will be accused of being anti-Muslim, and if the troops don’t act strongly enough she will be accused of going soft on terrorists.
President Arroyo has already been accused by some of going easy on the Abu Sayyaf after the military seemed to be slowing down its offensive against the kidnappers. What really happened is that the president was faced with the real danger of more hostages being executed. With the country’s image abroad already suffering from this latest kidnapping of Americans and Filipinos, Gloria knows all too well just how much damage just one dead foreign tourist would do.
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Last week’s column, “Immigrants, attitude and US Mail,” seems to have struck a nerve with many of my readers. They either hated it or loved it. I will include portions of some of their reactions next week. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to include them this week because I don’t have regular access to the Internet.
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Patrick Ramos is the fictitious name of a Filipino I know in Los Angeles. His story is interesting because it mirrors the experience of so many other Pinoy immigrants. A dental technician by training, Patrick came to the United States seven years ago on a visit visa sponsored by his uncle who is a US citizen.
Of course, Patrick never intended to return quickly to the Philippines. This was his golden chance to make it in the country that so many Pinoys dream of entering. He knew he was going to be illegal for a while, but he never dreamed it would last this long. His uncle, who is a dentist and who runs his own dentistry office, had promised him that he and his business partner would immediately begin working on his work permit, and that in a relatively short period of time, say two years, he would be legalized and on track to getting a green card five years down the road.
What happened was nothing short of nightmarish. Less than six months after he arrived, Patrick was asked to move out of his uncle’s house into the house of a friend. Patrick obliged only to find that he was just beginning what was to be the first of a string of exploitative relationships. He moved from house to house, raking up a grand total of seven moves in just a few years, as each Pinoy after the other eventually threatened to turn him into the Immigration and Naturalization Service when he would finally refuse being exploited any more.
Patrick worked on and off for his uncle, making $5 an hour, which was just below the minimum wage. He had no choice but to continue working for his relative. His uncle had threatened him with stopping work on his papers if he left his dentistry office.
In the course of these events, Patrick found out that he was HIV-positive. Patrick now takes around ten pills twice a day to keep his disease in check. Most of the pills are anti-virals and they seem to be doing their job. He’s been lucky so far, not having suffered any major infection or hospitalization. He often feels weak and fatigued, and his meds give him constant diarrhea, but apart from that he’s doing well. In a twist that is ironic beyond belief, Patrick told me he could never return to living in the Philippines because of the expensive medication he is on. Since he earns just above the minimum wage now, Patrick qualifies for free medication which is provided by a local AIDS organization. Not only that, but he also gets a free bus pass every month and gets free food supplies from a local food bank. All of this assistance makes it possible for him to survive both financially and healthwise.
Of course, he doesn’t have much money leftover at the end of each month, but he’s surviving. If Patrick lived in the Philippines, he certainly couldn’t afford the costly medication needed to keep the AIDS virus in check. Despite that, Patrick tells me he dreams of the day he can visit his family again in Manila. That will only happen when he legalizes his stay in the US. Hopefully, it will happen soon.
