Abu Sabaya seeking passport?

If kidnappings and other national problems are making you consider fleeing the country, you are not alone.

The spokesman for the Abu Sayyaf extremist group may himself be planning to leave the Philippines.

Military intelligence reports have disclosed that Abu Sabaya is trying to secure passports for him and his family from the Department of Foreign Affairs.

However, Foreign Affairs Undersecretary for Administration Franklin Ebdalin, who was not aware of the report, said he would ask the Zamboanga consular extention office to investigate the matter.

Sabaya was said to have a contact at the foreign affairs department who had submitted passport applications for him and his family under false names.

The contact was said to be working to speed up the processing and release of the passports to allow Sabaya and his family to immediately flee the country.

Quoting intelligence reports, Armed Forces spokesman Brig. Gen. Edilberto Adan said Sabaya fears for his family’s life following the non-stop military operation against the Abu Sayyaf in their jungle hideout in Basilan.

In his talk with reporters yesterday, Ebdalin seemed to have admitted that anyone could apply for a Philippine passport using a fake birth certificate or marriage contract without the staff of the consular section knowing about it.

Ebdalin said he did not know if the passport applications of Sabaya and his family were filed and processed in Zamboanga, other consular extension offices, or the main office on Roxas Boulevard in Pasay City.

All Ebdalin could say was that the report was being investigated and that he will make sure that Sabaya and his family were not issued passports.

He said the "proper authorities" will decide if Sabaya would be issued a passport because he is facing kidnapping and other criminal charges in court.

Ebdalin said the foreign affairs department will not deny Sabaya a passport on the the sole basis that criminal charges have been filed against him.

Consular officials would try to find out Sabaya’s contact at the passport office, he added.

Born Aldan Tilao, Sabaya was an overseas Fiilipino worker in Saudi Arabia before he joined the Filipino mujahideens, who fought Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the early 1980s.

After his combat experience, Sabaya returned to the country and tried join the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, but did not pass the rigid examination.

It was then that he joined several kidnapping gangs and became involved in many abductions of Filipinos and foreigners before forming the Abu Sayyaf with the Janjalani brothers.

Sabaya studied criminology at Zamboanga Arthur Eustaquio College.–Aurea Calica, Edith Regalado