If you were a captive, not knowing where you are or whether you would even be alive the next day, you would do anything to keep yourself safe and be in the good graces of your captors. That is apparently what Lingig, Surigao del Sur Mayor Henry Dano did in a recorded apology e-mailed by the National Democratic Front of the Philippines to news outlets last week. In his message, Dano said he was sorry for the offenses he had committed and vowed to make amends if given the chance. He was strangely unspecific as to what these offenses are, but the NDFP and its armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA), which abducted Dano and his two military escorts, had earlier said he was accused of maintaining a murderous private army to advance his mining interests.

It is not difficult to imagine Dano’s state of mind and why he agreed to record such a message. He is, after all, a captive, and as such he has little choice as to what he does and says. For all we know he had a gun to his head when he made his apology, but even if there were none, it was enough that he was being kept against his will, and that meant anything he said was under duress and should be taken with a huge grain of salt – not because he was lying, but because he was being forced, by circumstance or by the barrel of a gun, to say it.

The intent of the NDFP and the NPA in releasing the audio clip is obviously not to stop the military from conducting rescue operations but simply to earn propaganda points, for surely they know that Dano’s confession will never be believed by the authorities. If anything, the clip will solidify the military’s resolve to rescue the mayor, who they now know is being used against his will to advance a cause he does not believe in.

Expelled?

The expulsion of Ameril Umra Kato from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) raises some serious questions on the future not just of the peace talks but of peace itself in Mindanao. One remembers how the MILF itself was founded: it broke away from the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) when it became dissatisfied with how that group was handling the struggle for a homeland in Mindanao, and government, which had been dealing with one group, was forced to contend with two. Peace was later achieved with the MNLF, and today peace with the MILF appears to be within reach. Kato has already formed his own Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Movement and its own armed wing, the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters; the question is, what keeps him from launching attacks and then demanding that government also talk with it – on pain of having another drawn-out conflict in Mindanao?

The MILF needs to do more than expel Kato from the group. It must keep the rogue commander in check or, better yet, in custody before he can gather his troops again and launch another series of attacks as he did in 2008. Those attacks on civilian communities – done in the aftermath of the botched memorandum of agreement on ancestral domain (MOA-AD) – left scores dead and hundreds of thousands displaced from their homes. If he did it before, he can do it again, given the right conditions and enough room in which to act.

Expelling Kato seems like the ultimate cop-out for the MILF, for in one decision it washes its hands of the problem and leaves the government – and the Filipino people at large – the burden of handling him. The MILF must prove its sincerity and run after the rogue commander and render him powerless and unable to disrupt the peace process.

Jon Joaquin is the managing editor of the largest circulation newspaper in Mindanao, the Mindanao Daily Mirror in Davao City.

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