It already has. Manila’s long-simmering struggle with both communist and Islamic rebels in the southern Philippines – chiefly Mindanao, the country’s second largest and poorest island – has boiled over again. For about 30 years, the government and its rural adversaries have been locked in a seemingly endless cycle of vicious fighting, ceasefires, inconclusive peace talks, followed by more fighting. Philippine President Joseph Estrada has lately cranked up the military pressure on the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), a major Philippine separatist group and old government enemy. While the Army was distracted by the MILF, Abu Sayyaf slipped out of the jungle and grabbed two groups of hostages on tiny islands that are part of Mindanao. Government soldiers confronted one Abu Sayyaf unit on Basilan last week – and after a shoot-out, rescued 15 hostages. The rebels claim to be still holding 10 people. Meanwhile, on nearby Sulu Island, about 60 Abu Sayyaf extremists are hiding in the jungle with a second hostage group – mostly foreign tourists captured while on vacation. Government soldiers are hunting for them. “It’s very tense here,” Noralyn Mustafa, a Sulu-based journalist, told NEWSWEEK. “The feeling is, this will drag on. Nobody seems to be in charge.”
Estrada is under mounting pressure to deal with the latest rebel threats. Right now, there are three of them – the communist New People’s Army (9,000 members), the MILF (15,000 members) and Abu Sayyaf, which, though tiny (200 armed fighters), has gained much attention with its violent tactics. The ongoing hostage crisis has become a test of his shaky leadership. “This is a major wake-up call for Estrada,” says a Western ambassador in Manila. “They could afford to play down the first kidnapping in Basilan because it was an internal incident. But they have to do something about an attack that has involved Germans, French and Malaysian people, among others. Estrada is not famous for making decisions, but he has to this time – and quickly.”
The president hasn’t done much more than make a statement. At a May 5 press conference, Estrada said: “Neither the secessionist cause of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front nor the barbarism of the Abu Sayyaf gangsters enjoys public support. We continue to undertake comprehensive reform programs that address the legitimate grievances of Mindanao… I offer peace to those who want peace. But I promise defeat to those who want war.” After the foreign hostages were brought to Sulu, Estrada appointed a negotiator, Nur Misuari, governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, to mediate the crisis. But he has alienated local officials and is ineffective, according to a former Mindanao government official. The Philippine Daily Inquirer last week ran a story with the headline: “RP [Republic of the Philippines] in Crisis – But Where is Erap?”
Sensationalist media reports about the kidnappings have made everyone anxious. Last week a freelance journalist shot a videotape of the Abu Sayyaf rebels and their captives in a Sulu jungle hut. In the tape, the rebels are wearing hoods and toting guns. The hostages are huddled together and appear fearful. A German hostage looks into the camera and says plaintively: “We don’t want to die.” Before the rebels fled into the jungle, a doctor examined the hostages and said that “most of them appeared exhausted and dehydrated.” She told the captors that two of the hostages should be hospitalized, but the rebels refused to free them.
The current crisis started a few months ago, when the Philippine Army began harassing the MILF in and around its main base in central Mindanao. The base, named Abubakar, is a sprawling military compound located near Cotabato City. Civilian communities live inside the camp, where they have their own madrasah (Islamic school) and mosque. MILF men collect “taxes” from local residents and travelers. Though the base is a hostile force dedicated to the breakup of the Philippines, Manila has tolerated its presence for years. A group of officers even ran a program outside the camp to teach rebel sympathizers how to farm, in an attempt to bring them back into society.
But the Army’s tactics recently shifted. In March Estrada declared an “all-out war” against the rebels and ordered the military to take over the MILF camps. In recent gun battles, more than 100 rebels and eight soldiers have been killed. Last week the MILF struck back, exploding bombs in General Santos City, home to the biggest food port in the country. Three people were killed. The rebels also fired rockets at the Army’s headquarters in Cotabato City, leading to a temporary closing of the airport. “This exposes the vulnerability of the economy to a full-scale guerrilla war,” says Paul Dominguez, a Mindanao businessman and civic leader. “Nobody likes what is happening.”
Government officials assert that the MILF and Abu Sayyaf must be dealt with separately. “We must make peace with the MILF,” Vice President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo told NEWSWEEK. “But we have to conquer the Abu Sayyaf completely – they’re terrorists.” But Gregorio Honasan, a former Army colonel and now Philippine Senator, disagrees. He says that “killing the enemy will get us nowhere, except to make us a lot more enemies [in the south.]” Better, he thinks, to go back to the bargaining table and try to break the cycle of war. “President Estrada has a chance to take us in that direction,” says Honasan. “We all have to make it work, but he has to give us the leadership.” That may be asking a lot of a politician who hasn’t yet shown much eagerness to step into the breach.
