MANILA, Philippines—Any kidnapping is a barbarism, but it is especially unfortunate that a respected academic, Mindanao State University professor Octavio Dinampo, was among those abducted in Sulu province last Sunday by armed men believed by many to be from the Abu Sayyaf.

Dinampo is chair of Sulu’s Bantay Ceasefire and executive officer of Tulung Lupah Sug. A regular source of information for the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s Mindanao bureau, he had relayed an invitation last May to this newspaper’s Zamboanga City-based correspondent Julie Alipala to join an exclusive interview with someone from the Abu Sayyaf—an invitation the newspaper declined, because the so-called “sources” wanted a “token” (something on the order of a cellphone, Alipala said) as a “confidence-building measure.”

The request for a “token” was eventually dropped. But, as Alipala recounted in her first-person account the other day, the Inquirer Mindanao bureau chief “sensed something amiss in the security arrangements when the ‘sources’ later dropped their demand for a ‘token’ just to accommodate the Inquirer.”

The point: The “sources” were banking on Dinampo’s reservoir of goodwill with journalists to arrange the interview. It is almost a certainty that the same circumstances attended the interview arranged for ABS-CBN Broadcasting’s senior reporter and anchor Ces Drilon and her two-man crew. Now Dinampo, Drilon and cameramen Jimmy Encarnacion and Angelo Valderama are the latest kidnapping victims of the Abu Sayyaf.

(They are not, however, the latest kidnapping victims in troubled parts of Muslim Mindanao. Last Tuesday, two Marine corporals were abducted in Albarka, Basilan by a unit of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. Local officials say the kidnapping was a gambit—a contemptible one—to exchange the hostages for a nephew of the unit commander, under government custody.)

Was Dinampo in on the kidnapping? The view of the Philippine National Police (PNP) is ambivalent at best. Chief Supt. Joel Goltiao of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao told reporters that the professor was not yet considered a victim of kidnapping. “We are still determining his identity and we need to probe deeper into his background.”

Senior Supt. Julasirim Kasim, chief of police of Sulu, said Dinampo “remains a suspect.” He cited early reports—since vigorously denied—that Dinampo had already been released. “This professor knows the situation in the area, so how come he has to bring Madame Ces? What’s his motive?”

We find it unusual that someone like Dinampo, a longtime peace advocate with a track record of helping resolve conflicts in the area, should be largely unknown to somebody like Goltiao. We find it extraordinary that someone like Kasim should wonder aloud about the academic’s integrity and “motive,” when Dinampo’s role as a go-between, a person accessible to all sides, is community knowledge. To be sure, some have wondered about Dinampo’s access to the Abu Sayyaf; he is not known for having close contacts with them. But even this does not seem to have been a factor in PNP thinking.

Dinampo has not lacked for defenders. Sulu province’s Rep. Yusop Jikiri described him as a credible peace advocate and a “respected educator.” A Catholic priest, Bert Layson, who works with him in the Mindanao Peoples’ Caucus, called Dinampo “a man of peace.” A member of the Citizens Peace Watch hailed Dinampo as “a respected academic and concerned citizen who has been tirelessly campaigning for peace in Mindanao and in the country.”

But are the police listening? It wouldn’t hurt the PNP’s image with the people of Sulu, and it certainly won’t hurt the ongoing investigation, if the police did the basic thing and considered Dinampo a victim of kidnapping too. It may be that he was used unwittingly to serve as lure for a trap; it may be that the “coverage” he had helped arrange was hijacked by others. Neither should make him a suspect.

That (as seems most likely) the Abu Sayyaf also kidnapped Dinampo reflects badly on the bandits—but to say this is to suggest that the Abu Sayyaf may be susceptible to reason, when experience shows they understand only fortune and force. They are bandits, plain and simple. But the PNP’s initial response to the fate of one of the victims reflects badly on the government too. We hope they can still listen to reason.