Hostage plight unites Filipinos

I HAD just returned from a trip to Los Angeles when I received a call on my cell phone from a TV reporter friend. "Did the Philippines capitulate to the terrorist demands?" he asked. "I'm not sure," I replied, explaining that there were conflicting reports from the Philippines. "I'm not sure even the government knows what it's going to do. I suspect it is just trying to buy time so that Filipino hostage Angelo de la Cruz will not be killed."

The fate of one Filipino hostage has thrust the Philippines to the fore of the news once again. What to most countries would be a "no-brainer" -- no capitulation to terrorists -- has turned out to be an excruciatingly difficult decision for the Philippines.

If the Philippine government followed conventional wisdom and rejected the terrorists' demands, Angelo de la Cruz would be beheaded and his family would lose its sole breadwinner. There would be protests all over the Philippines
denouncing the government's lack of concern for the fate of its OFWs (overseas Filipino workers).

If the Philippine government acceded to the terrorists, then the Philippines would be seen as endangering the lives of all foreigners in Iraq allied with the US. It would, as the White House spokesperson called it, a betrayal of the US policy not to negotiate or provide benefits to terrorists as it would "send the wrong signal."

Didn't the Saudi terrorists demand that US oil workers in Saudi Arabia leave the country or else their American hostage would be beheaded? The hostage was beheaded and soon thereafter thousands of Americans in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain were evacuated back to the US. Was this not acceding to the terrorist demands?

The White House must be in shock. How could the Philippines, the closest US ally in Southeast Asia, turn its back on the US? It was always taken as gospel in the United Nations that one did not need to know what the Philippine position was on any issue. All one had to do was look at the US position and that was the Philippine stand.

President George W. Bush would not have been shocked if this decision had come from a President Fernando Poe Jr. (FPJ) or a Raul Roco, a Ping Lacson or a Brother Edie Villanueva. But it came from President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA) whom Bush honored with a major White House dinner reception just over a year ago. It was the same GMA who was the first to accept President Bush's claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was an imminent threat to the US and to the world and that it had al-Qaida connections, all of which have proven
to be false. The Philippines was the lone Southeast Asian ally to join Bush's "Coalition of the Willing" and send 51 peacekeepers on a humanitarian mission to Iraq.

I told the KTVU Channel 2 reporter that the kidnapping of De la Cruz by the Iraqi terrorists has united the Philippines in a way that Americans would not be able to fully comprehend. This is a country that was reeling from arguably
the most divisive elections in its history. Faced with destabilizing threats from the left and the right and rocked by steep increases in the prices of all commodities and utilities, the Philippines was a fractured nation on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

And then a Filipino worker was taken hostage by Iraqi terrorists.

Overnight, the Filipino people are moved by the harrowing plight of De la Cruz and his family who represented the average OFW Juan de la Cruz. Virtually every Filipino knows a friend, relative or acquaintance who is part of the eight-million-strong global Filipino community so everyone could feel for De la Cruz.

Prayer vigils are held all over the Philippines by Filipino Christians and Muslims. In Manila, taxi drivers lit candles on the roadside and prayed for the hostage. Even the Iraqi Community of the Philippines issued a statement attributed to its leader, Ibrahim Findi Abid, saying: "In the name of Allah, the most gracious, the most merciful, we... appeal to our Iraqi brothers who took the Filipino Angelo de la Cruz hostage to release him peacefully. He went there to earn for his living and to support his family. He is not involved in any political problem in Iraq."

The Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines directs that Catholic masses all over the country offer special prayers for De La Cruz. Mr. Mahid Mutilan, the president of the Ulama League of the Philippines, issued an appeal in
Arabic to his Iraqi captors to release De La Cruz. "Especially in Mindanao, Christians and Muslims have been in dialogue for many years. If you kill this man, you are destroying our efforts in the Philippines and that is not in
accordance with the tradition of Islam," Mutilan said.

Perhaps the most moving statement that was released on this issue came from Christopher Carrion, the founding chairperson of the Spirit of Edsa Foundation Inc., who said:

"It is wise and prudent for a sovereign state not to accede to the demands of terrorists lest it sanction terroristic approaches as an effective tool for a desired outcome. On the other hand, the supreme value of saving a singular
life of a Filipino is paramount in a civilized state. This dilemma is certainly peculiar under the circumstance being faced at this point. If various approaches, which must be made, is founded on the premise that in the heart of hearts
of all men lies a conscience, then perhaps with faith and determination a degree of reasoning may be achieved, but cautious discernment must be made so that any final action would not indirectly cause future sacrifice of lives.

"Considering the fact that the Philippine troops withdrawal is barely a few weeks away, saving a single Filipino life is viewed by the majority of Filipinos as paramount over saving the face of state policy. We therefore pray that a
middle-ground solution be at hand...

"Finally, may the Iraqi people know that our country is composed of freedom-loving citizens whose Christian and Muslim citizens have had a long history of mutual respect and peaceful inter-relationship, and its people therefore
should not be judged as involved in the design and implementation of evolving world politics. The (abductors') continuing political approach of beheading innocent civilians is not only inhuman with no popular support among their own people of similar faith, but would diminish their cause and quest for peace.

"Give Angelo de la Cruz back to his family and to the Filipino people. Your message has been heard loud and clear, and lessons learned. Though absolute justice could never be achieved in this life, it may begin within the hearts of
man. Let there be peace on Earth, and let it begin with us."

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