Girl’s wish: No more violence

Eighty-nine bedraggled hostages celebrated freedom in Zamboanga City yesterday after rebels who dragged them from their beds before dawn Tuesday released them in exchange for safe passage.

"I wish for no more violence in Zamboanga," said eight-year-old Ma. Chiara Españo, who was seized with her mother and father by followers of Nur Misuari.

The rebels seized the Españo family and 110 other people as they retreated from pursuing government troops who moved to evict them from the Cabatangan complex, a government facility on a hilltop overlooking Zamboanga airport.

The military launched an airstrike with attack planes and helicopter gunships followed by a ground assault that resulted in the death of 25 rebels, two soldiers and a civilian.

Early Tuesday morning, the rebels sent out journalist Jose Ma. Bue of the Daily Zamboanga Times to tell the military to stop the assault otherwise the hostages would be killed.

Bue, however, returned to the rebels because he feared that his pregnant wife and one-year-old daughter would be hurt. His wife and baby were later released after the military assured the rebels would be allowed to leave the area.

What followed around noon was a nerve-wracking impasse where the rebels used their 55 male, 25 female and nine child hostages as human shields as they marched from the outskirts of the complex to a residential compound in Barangay Pasonanca.

The hostages were roped together and surrounded by some 217 rebels, who wrapped their arms around the necks of weeping girls and pointed pistols at their heads.

Government troopers, including an armored personnel carrier, continued to train their guns on the rebels as they marched to Pasonanca, a hilly village on the outskirts of the city.

"All the while we thought we were going to be shot. I don’t want anybody to go through something like this," said housewife Adelaida Regino, weeping.

At Pasonanca, Ibrahim Iribani, assistant secretary of the Department of the Interior and Local Government, and Isnaji Alvarez, acting governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, negotiated with the rebels for the hostages’ release.

By midnight, the rebels agreed to release 24 hostages, including nine children, in exchange for the release of 10 rebels who were caught in the fighting that raged at the Cabatangan Complex.

The rebels made a series of demands but agreed to release all their hostages if they would be granted safe passage to their stronghold outside the city, a camp recognized by the government.

By noon Wednesday, 217 rebels were on board military trucks en route to their camp where they were supposed to turn over their assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars to Alvarez. The rebels, however, insisted on keeping their guns.

After the rebels reached their camp in Panibugan, Taguiti town, the authorities entered the residential compound and released the hostages.

An Air Force bus was brought in to take the dazed captives to the Edwin Andrews Air Base for medical checkups and to be reunited with their relatives.

"It was an exercise in anxiety and stress," school teacher Emil Escano told Reuters. "You will never know what will happen to you. One had to pray a lot." — Roel Pareño