This is how we treat a soldier?

Enough already. We’ve heard all the hype about "bunglings" in the military pursuit of Abu Sayyaf terrorists who took a dozen hostages from Dos Palmas in May 2001. There’s the spiced up account that a general paid ransom to get the victims out as soon as the kidnappers landed in Basilan. There’s the imputation that our soldiers were so scared of the bandits that they avoided engaging them in Lamitan. There’s even the taunt that Abu Sayyaf spokesman Abu Sabaya is alive and well and feasting nightly in Sulu. Now comes the side comments of one of the freed hostages, in a co-authored book, that the Armed Forces colluded all this time with the terrorists. And, oh, that the wicked Sabaya had the fortitude to berate the President of the Republic during a phone conversation.

This is not to say that Gracia Burnham, who lost her husband and a good part of her life in the ordeal, is lying. If she says that a general lusted for half of the ransom and thus prolonged their captivity, and that Gloria Arroyo let the prestige of the Presidency be soiled, then she must be telling the truth. At least, her version of it. She was, after all, in the hands of sly tormentors for more than a year. Whatever they play-acted for her to believe must have stuck as the movie in her mind. Yet now, bewildered by the uproar that her book has stirred in Manila, Gracia is backing up and stammering that she never meant to blame anyone. She’s praying that God would take care of the ransom-lusting general in the end.

We all know how to pray ... I think. But it’s also time to look at the facts. More so since, as if on cue from Gracia’s book launching, a publicity-hungry senator and a defense secretary who wants to be senator too, are now crying in righteous indignation for the court martial of one General Romeo Dominguez. How they thirst for blood to sate ambition.

Dominguez was head of the Army’s 1st Infantry (Tabak) Division, stationed in half of Mindanao, at the time of the "Lamitan incident" of June 1-2, 2001. By July he was out of there, moved to the 7th Division in Samar-Leyte. Gracia wrote in her book that starting January 2002, food was being left on the roadside for them to pick up. A general supposedly was arranging it, since he wanted ransom talks to go on so he could get half of the loot. Suddenly the senator and the secretary rise and cry, "crucify Dominguez." Duh. Six months, man, and 600 miles away. Count it.

But maybe they meant Lamitan, of which Dominguez was part, though not of the "lapses" that merit court martial. If any general must be tried, he’s higher than Dominguez. Lucky for him, he’s also retired. As for the secretary, an ex-general too, he must know what his role was that prevented the pursuit of the terrorists right after the fierce Lamitan fighting. But that’s going ahead of the story.

To understand what happened at Lamitan, one must know there are two hospitals in town one kilometer apart, Torres Memorial inside the church compound taken over by the Abu Sayyaf, and Emergency District which Dominguez visited on June 2 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Dominguez was at the time also head of Joint Task Force Comet and Task Force Zambo. His men had freed year-long hostage Jeffrey Schilling from the Abu Sayyaf in Sulu only two months before. Under him was the 103rd Infantry Brigade (led by Col. Jovenal Narcise) in charge of Lamitan and five other towns and one city on Basilan.

The plaint that spurred two separate legislative inquiries was that the Army let the terrorists escape through the back door of the church compound at 5:30 p.m., June 2. As the Senate and House hearings and the AFP Inspector General’s inquest showed, there was never an order from Dominguez to withdraw the troops. There was a judgment call by the company commander, Captain Guinolbay, who moved some of the Army Rangers to the front but kept most of the men at the back. The terrorists did escape – by using remaining hostages as shields, the same way the MILF now retreats after pillaging villages. The soldiers and policemen fired to miss, fearful of hurting the hostages. Still, it was not the walk in the park that two eyewitnesses claimed. One hostage was wounded, so the Abu Sayyaf had to leave her and husband behind. The identical affidavits of the "eyewitnesses" were in English. On examination in Congress, they could speak only Tagalog or Yakan.

One other report induced the Congress inquiries: that Dominguez paid off the bandits to free a rich hostage. This assertion was made by a lone witness, who said Dominguez arrived at Emergency District with an aide toting a briefcase full of money. The amount varies, starting with P2 million then rising to P25 million, which would have taken more than one man to lug. The woman said the aide lingered outside while the general conferred with the medical staff inside a room. How strange for an officer to not keep his eye on an aide with P2 million or P25 million. The witness said the general left at 11 a.m. to deliver the money. Dominguez actually stayed till way past noon. More important, the rich hostage, along with 20 of 30 hostages (70 percent) already had been freed by 10 a.m. in a fierce gunbattle in which six soldiers were killed. So what’s the point of paying ransom? Yet the witness was so sure of what she saw, despite failing eyesight from diabetes. She did not recognize the aide seated right beside her during her Congress testimony.

They also take Dominguez for a patsy for not deploying the 18th Infantry Battalion from Tuburan to Lamitan. That decision was made after a heated discussion at 103rd Brigade HQ among Dominguez, then-AFP chief Gen. Diomedio Villanueva, then-Southern Command chief Lt. Gen. Eduardo Camiling and the latter’s operations chief Colonel Pabustan. There was fighting in Tuburan; soldiers had intercepted a band of Abu Sayyaf reinforcements. The commanding officer of the 18th Battalion later testified that no less than Villanueva, the secretary’s nominee, gave him the order to stay put – thus precariously bypassing the general of the division and two task forces, and the brigade colonel.

And, oh, Gracia said in her book that after the escape from Lamitan, the soldiers never pursued them. The secretary might recall that, despite the generals’ protests, he insisted on going to Lamitan on June 3. And so they had to field hundreds of soldiers along his route for security.

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