At the leadership seminar sponsored by the JC Binay Foundation and the Philippine STAR at the Makati Shangri-La last Tuesday, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani captivated the audience during his speech, “Leadership in Times of Crisis.”
But it was broadcast journalist Ces Drilon who held the audience on the palm of her hand. Her unvarnished retelling of her ordeal in the jungles of Sulu seemed almost like fiction — it had conflict, a buildup, a climax, a denouement, a conclusion. And most of all it had a lesson, and in her speech “Coming out of a Crisis, Stronger and Wiser,” Ces let it all out.
Here are excerpts from her speech:
Jimmy Encarnacion and Angel Valderama were members of my team for the coverage in Sulu. In the last two and a half years, they were my regular companions in my out of town coverages, which brought us to as far north as Ilocos Norte and as far south as Sulu and Tawi-Tawi. But this time, I was not to rely on them for our story to get to air on time for the evening news, I was to lean on them for our very survival. Jimmy and Angel were my protectors during our captivity. The respect they showed me was picked up by our captors who addressed me as, “ma’am” as they did. The two would look after my welfare, even washing my soiled clothes for me. I had repeatedly asked them for forgiveness, but they had no recrimination for me. In our darkest moment, Jimmy reached out for my hand and we prayed. Our quiet prayer gave me the strength and calmness I so desperately needed when all seemed so hopeless.
It all began in pursuit of a story I had planned a year and a half ago, when the death of Abu Sayyaf leader Khadaffi Janjalani had been confirmed by DNA tests in January 2007. He had been mortally wounded in an encounter with the marines in September 2006. The question then was: who was to inherit the mantle of Janjalani as leader of the Abu Sayyaf. It was the belief of Professor Octavio Dinampo who was the last to interview Janjalani in February 2006, that the new amir was Radullan Sahiron, a former MNLF Commander who had joined the Abu Sayyaf. The military believed it was a toss-up between Yasser Igasan, a young militant who reportedly fought in Afghanistan and Sahiron, a legendary one-armed warrior, a skillful horseman and a respected elder.
Early this year, when it had seemed more likely that Sahiron would grant an interview, the Professor had told me privately that he hoped its airing would signal the start of peace talks between the government and the Abu Sayyaf.
It was a story any journalist would go after, but in a cruel twist of fate we ended up hostages, held by a group that were no more than bandits. Throughout our ordeal, four to five armed men would be assigned to us as our closed in guards, watching over us during the day. At night, one or two would always be on alert, taking turns to check on us.
Their guns were not pointed at us all the time and in the end, not a single shot was fired, but we were always in fear, even when the men would crack jokes with Angel and Jimmy. On our third day, three young boys joined the group, one of whom told me he was 12. He bore an armalite while guarding me as I bathed in a spring. He said he never went to school, but he was old enough to carry a gun. I wondered, as we returned to camp and as he sat in his hammock to watch over us, if he really knew how to fire his weapon. Whenever the prospect of a lower ransom amount would be brought up as I spoke with my family, the men would regard us with contempt. They would pepper us with angry words and the possibility that they would use their guns on us became very real. The teenaged boys were particularly mean and would taunt and mock me, “Kawawa naman si ma’am, hindi nakikita ang mga anak niya, kawawa naman si ma’am.” They would recite over and over like a nursery rhyme in their high pitched voices. I was angered by them at first, and at one point, scolded one of them for their lack of respect, they were only as young as my sons. But then I realized who could blame them with such men as their role models. As we walked to our freedom on our last day, I had urged a 17-year-old boy whom I had admired for his cooking skills, to go to school, but his reply to me was no he didn’t want to, because he said and I quote “Baka maging engineer pa ako.” (This brought tears to Ces eyes as she spoke, and she had to pause to look for some tissue paper.) These boys were convinced, bearing arms and fighting was the right path to take. His response broke my heart.
June 11 was our fourth day in captivity. It was my dad’s birthday. As a Lt. Colonel in the Philippine Army, it was he who had made places like Patikul, Maimbung and Jolo familiar to me. Early in the day, as the Commander handed me my phone to call my family, I read a text my mother had sent “Your release on your dad’s birthday will be his most beautiful gift to us.” But it was not to be.
It was mid-afternoon of that day that the supreme test of our courage came, when all their guns were pointed at us for the very first time. The men went berserk when I got off the phone with Vice Governor Lady Anne Sahidulla, who had been chosen by my family as our negotiator with the kidnappers. She had told me that all my family could afford to pay was P2M, when the group was demanding P20M. Commander Tek, the one-armed man, was raving mad. When the phone was grabbed from me, he looked at me in the eye and said we would die in the jungle. The video camera of Jimmy was taken down from the camp, with the men saying they would just set fire to it.
I returned to my hammock and held Jimmy’s hand as we prayed for courage. Before this, he had whispered to me that he had secretly taken footage of the camp we had just moved to on a slope of a mountain. Not only did we have to contend with the rage of the armed men over the ransom, we feared his footage may be discovered. Then my heart jumped as the men grabbed Jimmy and Angel, forcing them to kneel on the mud and tying their hands behind their back. The men had told us if the full amount was not received by Indanan Mayor Alvarez Isnaji (the person they had chosen to receive the money for them) by two in the afternoon of following day, Angel would be beheaded while Jimmy would film it with his video camera. I was told to put on makeup so my head would be pretty when it would be sent to ABS-CBN. I struggled to be as calm. My calmness in the face of all these threats surprised me. There was no other choice. To be hysterical would have achieved nothing. I could not do anything to comfort Jimmy and Angel and all I could was offer them a drink from the plastic gallon, as they were hogtied. I wanted to cry, but I held myself.
We had to save Angel. We quietly discussed what to propose. The professor said, what if we offer a cash advance to lift the ultimatum? He talked to the one-armed man in Tausug. The professor came back and said the group would meet again to discuss our proposal.
By 9 p.m., Commander Tek came to tell me that they had decided on a P5-million cash advance by 2 p.m., to cancel the ultimatum on Angel.
It was the longest night of my life. I prayed hard and confronted the possibility that I, too, may die. I could not live if one of us is beheaded. I would also die myself.
It was past the 2 p.m. deadline, when Commander Tek approached my hammock and said that the P5 million was already with the mayor and that the ultimatum on Angel had been cancelled — and that he was going to be released. It was good news to us!
Without hesitation, I agreed, but asked that I must explain this to Jimmy. We all agreed and wished Angel well. They warned me that I must instruct Angel not to talk to the authorities or our safety will be jeopardized. Some 12 men prepared to bring Angel out. It was June 12, Independence Day.
Our captors never laid a hand on me, until the eighth night of our captivity when I was roused from sleep in my hammock and my hands were bound in rope that they used to tie our plastic tents. And on our last day, I was slapped twice while talking on the phone to Sen. Loren Legarda. The sound of the slap stunned me, but when the shock ebbed, I wondered why I didn’t feel any pain. Still, their brute force was palpable, even when they would lovingly clean their weapons in the morning before they would even have breakfast.
The possibility of rape was a fear that hung heavy in the air for me. I never betrayed my anxiety to Jimmy and Angel. But the night Angel was freed, Commander Tek had hung his hammock so close to mine. I had asked Professor Dinampo to speak to him as a fellow Tausug to keep a distance from me. But he didn’t. In his testimony before the preliminary investigation on the case against the Isnajis, Professor Dinampo had said that aside from the ultimatum on Angel, he overheard the men say they would rape me. It was the first time I had heard this from the Professor and my heart sank to the pit of my stomach. The Professor told the prosecution panel he kept it from me for fear I would become hysterical. That night in the jungle, when I heard the commander’s soft breathing as he fell asleep, I thought of reaching out for a bolo to slit his throat. But survival was still primordial and I let the thought pass. It was not until the men who escorted Angel came back in a jubilant mood, past midnight that they called the attention of Commander Tek, noting the closeness his hammock. The men had received part of the ransom then and were perhaps in a celebratory mood, thoughts of rape were set aside. The following day, Commander Tek teased me, saying the men were jealous of him. I ignored his comments. One time, one of the guards called my attention, I had folded my jeans below my knees to keep it from getting muddied up. The guard said such display was not allowed by the Muslim faith. I retorted that I didn’t want him to see my legs either! I had to struggle to hide my revulsion.
It was very early Tuesday, the day when the second ultimatum was to expire, that the men had already begun to threaten to behead Jimmy. The men gave me the phone to call my family. I called Sen. Legarda, who had been asked by ABS-CBN to help negotiate for our release. Gone was the calm in my voice, I told her, please tell me if there is money, otherwise I will prepare my fate.
It was before noon when I called her again saying they were ready to behead Jimmy. A bolo had been taken out. Then I heard a loud slap. I screamed and cried in shock. I slumped on a bamboo cot and hugged Jimmy, crying on his shoulder. Then I had seen that a rope had been tied from his arms behind him to his neck, with a piece of cloth tied around it. I had an empty feeling in my stomach.
They insisted I call my family again to ask exactly how much money they raised. I called Sen. Legarda once again. In the middle of the phone call, I saw one of the armed men hit me from the corner of my eye. Again, I fell on the cot. In the middle of my sobs, I remember asking Jimmy, where was I slapped? Why don’t I feel pain? But Jimmy was already begging the men for his life. I told the men, “Please behead me instead.”
By then, after all my prayers, I had asked the Lord to prepare me to accept my death calmly. At the same time, I tried to think, could they be bluffing? But I had made up my mind, that I would not beg these men for my life.
As they hit Jimmy with the butt of a rifle and the bamboo bed, I said, “Please, please one last call, one last call to my family!” But the phone rang and the image of the man who answered the call will forever be imprinted on my mind. He was laughing as he spoke to the phone, spat on the ground, ended the call and said to us, “It’s over, you are free.”
There were many great and simple discoveries I made in that most difficult trial I had just been through. It afforded me the opportunity to look deeper into myself, to recognize the goodness inside me and weed out the bad. I had painfully realized I had overlooked the value of family and my loved ones and their unconditional love I had taken for granted. I became more aware of my belief and confidence in my ability to overcome problems and at the same recognized the need for the humility to admit where I had erred and the courage to make amends for my mistakes, that I am not invincible and need the love and care of other people.
I learned the virtue of patience, I found joy in my surroundings and fed a curiosity about the tiniest things like an exotic flower, an ant carrying a morsel of food or a bug feeding on a leaf.
In the most cruel of circumstances I learned that life is beautiful and that we must make the most of it. That in the midst of evil, there is always some good and we must tap into this good to make a better place for all of us.
(You may e-mail me at joanneraeramirez@yahoo.com)