Double speak

The ambiguous language employed by authorities when speaking to reporters about the case of Jordanian journalist Baker Abdulla Atyani and his Filipino crew reflects the uneasy state of affairs in some parts of the South. Since they were last seen leaving their hostel in Jolo early on June 12, they have been variously described as missing but not abducted; “in the hands of the Abu Sayyaf” but not confirmed as being held hostage; and in the custody of a faction of the bandit group but not under duress. The latest, as of this writing, is that they are “somewhere in Patikul” and “safe and not threatened.” So far, only Octavio Dinampo, a professor of the Mindanao State University and himself a former kidnap victim, has categorically pronounced the case as an abduction. He described the authorities as “in denial.” Atyani is now close to being declared persona non grata, with Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo saying that once found, the bureau chief for Southeast China of the Al Arabiya TV news network should be sent home and banned from returning to the Philippines for interviewing the Abu Sayyaf without informing the government.

The fact is that Sulu authorities were caught flat-footed by the unscheduled departure of Atyani, audio man Ramelito Vela and cameraman Rolando Letrero from their hostel. That they could not be immediately located after their “disappearance” continues to be an embarrassment to both local and national officials and the police. Jolo remains blighted by its reputation as a dangerous place for foreigners and other outsiders, even if they are Filipino, as witness the case of the abduction of TV journalist Ces Drilon and her companions including her crew and Dinampo, in 2008. That Atyani and his crew managed to go off by themselves clearly amounted to a failure of intelligence on the local government’s part.

Journalists will constantly test the limits in the pursuit of their profession—that, so to speak, is the nature of the beast. Drilon pushed the envelope, was abducted by an armed group and held for a time, necessitating a government search and the expenditure of public and private funds, to speak nothing of the anguish of the families involved. Atyani is presumably in similar circumstances. Operating on the precept that reasonable men and women should be responsible for their actions, these journalists should be held to account for recklessness, gross naivete and endangerment of others, among other things. But suspicions are now being aired that Atyani is “a terrorist cell contact” and “the favored journalist of the late al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden,” and that his kidnapping was a ploy for him to deliver funds to the “[financially] pressured” Abu Sayyaf! This accusation, made by a Manila-based official speaking without attribution, smells of racism and obviously stems from Atyani’s having bagged an interview with Bin Laden only months before the terror attacks in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001. It also partakes of the time-worn practice of blaming a victim to deflect accountability from officialdom. The activist priest Fr. Robert Reyes is correct to chide officials for disclaiming responsibility “simply because a Muslim journalist gets into a dangerous area without informing the authorities.”

The case of Atyani and his crew also trains the spotlight on the almost forgotten abductions that continue to give the South a bad name. At last count, there are eight men being held by armed groups in Western Mindanao, five of them foreigners including two European bird watchers who had journeyed to Tawi-Tawi in the hope of seeing the rare Sulu hornbill. It’s unclear if the eight men’s captors are members of the Abu Sayyaf or rogue elements of organizations with Moro constituencies (it has been observed, wryly, that these groups, like business corporations, have interlocking memberships and leaderships). As of the first semester of 2010, according to a military document, the Abu Sayyaf had an estimated 400 members with “a little over 300 firearms” and was “constricted in the hinterlands of Basilan and Sulu” with “a modicum of presence in some urban centers in Mindanao.” It appears that while the bandit group is often described as a spent force, it is quite capable of mischief. The prospect of ransom is ever tantalizing, and past abductions that generated huge sums that purportedly benefited even government officials and their footmen are legendary. (They don’t call it ransom these days, just “expenses for board and lodging.”)