The Ces Drilon Abduction and Eventual Release: What do you think?

[adminroot]

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.. poor Ces, she was offered protection but she declined thinking no one will dare touch her coz she's a news correspondent. haha. stupid move for her. I wonder how many times per day she's raped. And last night, ABS was so silent about this whole issue. Amazing.

even sa TFC news, only a snippet sa kidnaping ang gibalita.

and sa ilang website, dyutay ra kaayo ang news article.

mag update ko sa news sa gma nga website hehehe.

kuyaw kung gi lubi2x na tu sa mga abu boys hehehe.

[colossus]

As per the news, she is scheduled to have an exclusive interview with the ASG. This is the reason why she did not want to be escorted by the military when she went to Sulu. In the end, she was lured to be within the ASG territory without knowing if she could still get out safe.

Indeed, this is part of her duty as journalist. But then again, if only she practiced a little caution, it would have been prevented. Now, she will have to seek the help of the authorities that she did not want to follow before.

[BloomerBeak]

^^ i thought they're just invited by the professor to cover an event. About ASG diay ilang giadtuan?
very late jud ko sa balita.

[godwhacker]

Here's an instant recall from Arlyn dela Cruz... Remember her? She was also abducted before by the ASG. Read on...

They kept asking about ransom, TV journalist recalls

By Arlyn dela Cruz
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 05:14:00 06/11/2008


MANILA, Philippines—They say no story is worth dying for—yet journalists can sometimes be lured to real dangers that can cost us our lives. We can be very trusting, perhaps because we expect to be trusted in return.

In a place like Sulu, journalists come mainly for stories arising from its long history of war and violence.

Sulu gave me my first exclusives in the world of Moro rebels, setting me off on a journalistic career now spanning almost two decades.

But it was also there that I had the most agonizing chapter of my life, when I was kidnapped by a group of gunmen in Indanan town on Jan. 20, 2002, on my way to do a follow-up on the hostage crisis involving American missionaries Martin and Gracia Burnham.

My abductors—men wearing military fatigues bearing the insignia of the “Tabak First Infantry Division”—seized me on the beach of Barangay Tandiong and held me hostage for 98 days.

They thought I was delivering the ransom money for the Burnhams. “What ransom are you talking about?” I asked.

I did not get any response. Instead I was slapped in the face, and pushed around till I hit a rock. I was ordered to undress and change into an outfit they threw at my face. Someone pointed a gun at my forehead to stop me from asking further questions.

Then they made me board a boat, tied my hands, and forced me to lay flat on my face. They took me to an island, which they said was still part of Tawi-Tawi. We scaled a mountain and they kept me in a hut.

For meals, I was often given rice, sardines, and coconut water. A week later I was relocated, again by boat.

Text messages

One day, they blindfolded and interrogated me regarding the text messages I was still getting on my mobile phone. Later in the night they pushed me into a shallow pit—and then someone pissed on me.

In the next few days, they kept asking me about the ransom. The torment only subsided when they turned me over to another group around the first week of February.

The uneasy calm allowed for some conversation between me and a man named Lakandula, one of their leaders.

“When will you, reporters, stop writing stories about the fighting in Sulu? Is that all what you reporters are after?” Lakandula then wondered aloud. “You write your report and that’s it. It’s all just work for you. Is that it? Just another ‘scoop’ from Sulu?”

I remember the two of us having this exchange inside a hut, and outside we could see a group of women passing by.

“Do you see those women, their children? Every day they have to walk for several kilometers to draw water from the river. Why? Because they don’t have a source of water near their homes.”

Flashback

These moments came back to me on Monday, after I got a call from a radio network deskman asking whether I’ve heard the news that ABS-CBN reporter Ces Drilon and her crew have gone missing—again in Sulu.

I phoned my sources in that province, mostly local officials, and received confirmation about Ces and her crew’s fate.

A journalist following his or her instinct would file that story right away. But remembering what had happened to me, my unsolicited advice at this stage is to keep pertinent details of the negotiation confidential—if indeed there’s already one—to ensure the safety of Ces and her crew.

When I returned to Sulu in August last year, more than five years after my kidnapping, it was at the invitation of a local official who asked me whether the media, this time around, could still do something about Sulu’s “image crisis.”

Media’s role

I was then asked to deliver a talk on the “role of the media in peace and development.”

Ironically, my host who made such a request was once a fearsome warrior himself, Abu Ambri Taddik, a former commander of the Moro National Liberation Front. He was the first MNLF leader to have granted me an interview, way back in 1992.

In his invitation letter, Abu Ambri wrote: “The encounters will not stop at once for as long as rebels do nothing else in the mountains and the military continues to launch offensives against them.

“But is there nothing else about Sulu that is worth reporting?”

The question practically echoed that of Lakandula, leader of the Tausug group that put me through a 98-day ordeal.

For that day inside the hut, Lakandula, pointing to the group of women on their way to the river, wanted to know: “Haven’t you thought of how you can help them?”


Copyright 2008 Philippine Daily Inquirer. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.




I believe her story. Though I believe she is withholding some parts of her real life drama due to it's sensitivity.

[love2travel]

they (Ces and co.) received an invitation from the asg for a dialogue or interview with them... that's the reason why she was in sulu (she was invited for a scoop)
ang luoy ani, she trusted them and even had her hostel prepare food for 20 people which she brought with them
how I hate to think that she might have been harmed or abused in anyway...

[colossus]

double post.

[godwhacker]

how I hate to think that she might have been harmed or abused in anyway...

Of course there's a greater possibility that she has been or will be abused. Track record na na sa ASG nga ilang pang remedyuhon ng ilang mga hostages.

Ug sa mga tagalog forums pa, si Ces pa? Ang kinis kinis nun...kaya hindi sya pweding makawala sa mga taga gubat na yan.

Mao nay giingun nga matambalan iyang pagka isug karon.

[Vino Kid]

may ra, gihimo rag paon ahahahha... poor ces manggaranon....

[adminroot]

Of course there's a greater possibility that she has been or will be abused. Track record na na sa ASG nga ilang pang remedyuhon ng ilang mga hostages.

Ug sa mga tagalog forums pa, si Ces pa? Ang kinis kinis nun...kaya hindi sya pweding makawala sa mga taga gubat na yan.

Mao nay giingun nga matambalan iyang pagka isug karon.

para nako pde ni maapil si ces sa akong lista sa mga MILF nga lami....

parihas nilang Pops Fernandez ug one and only Dina Bonnevie.

ABU meets MILF hehehe.

[estor_boot]

Yes there was. Ngano? While the government are mapping their course of action. Nagsige ug broadcast sa sulod sa hotel televisions ang ABS_CBN sa government troops who are taking their assault positions just outside the Manila Penn. It was like giving the group of Trillanes the birds eyeview of what was "also" happening outside the hotel.

huh? last time i checked, the PNP order that journalists (not only ABS-CBN) defied was not a news blackout but to leave the room where Trillanes group was staying.

on the contrary, the broadcast also had given the police outside the hotel Trillanes' exact location, his guards their weapons which a police officer claimed instrumental for the peaceful resolution of the siege.