Costs of war with guerrillas mounting in RP

By J.L. Hazelton

ZAMBOANGA, Philippines (AP): They lie in dimness on scarred iron beds, wounded soldiers and civilians together, sweltering in hot, heavy air unrelieved by a few whirring fans.

The military hospital at the Southern Command, headquarters for the Philippines' war against Islamic guerrillas, is where the casualties come.

The innocent, the soldiers, the rebels -- all are among the dying. Coffin after coffin is brought to weeping families here in Mindanao, a region in the southern Philippines where Muslim resistance to outside rule goes back centuries.

Along with the lost lives and lost limbs, and the lost innocence of the children taken hostage by rebels, trust between neighbors and communities is broken.

The economy, only a few years ago touted as a potential Asian Tiger until it was tumbled by the region's currency crisis, is hurting even more. And damage to the Philippines' prospects, with schools in some areas probably not opening for the next term, is incalculable.

With 21 Western and Asian hostages held in the jungle by fringe Abu Sayyaf guerrillas, world attention has been drawn to the decades-old complaints of Mindanao Muslims.

This is also the first time many Filipinos are seeing the costs of war so vividly.

In the 1970s, the last time violence was this serious, then- President Ferdinand Marcos' control of the news media kept the bloodshed largely out of sight.

Today, nothing is hidden. Carnage from battles and bombings is smeared across the newspapers each day.

Terror bombings on May 18 killed eight people and wounded dozens. Three grenades were thrown into a busy public market on Jolo island, where the hostages are held, and a bomb exploded at a bakery in Zamboanga at almost the same time. There was no claim of responsibility, but authorities suspected rebel involvement.

Despite the images of war blanketing the country, the fighting and explosions are largely limited to a few areas in Mindanao.

More than 200,000 people have been driven from their homes by the fighting.

Many are crowded into evacuation centers where officials fear outbreaks of disease. Others are with relatives who have little space or food to share, and there is no work for the refugees. Local governments are running short of money to care for them all.

The military, meanwhile, says it is running out of money to fight. There is talk of raising taxes, or freezing government hiring, to pay for the war while still keeping the budget deficit within International Monetary Fund guidelines.

The human cost to the military is the worst since the height of the insurgency 25 years ago, an armed forces spokesman, Col. Rafael Romero, said.

As of mid-May, the fighting had killed at least 113 soldiers and wounded more than 470 during the military's five-month offensive against the guerrillas. There are no reliable estimates of rebel casualties.

Businesses in what is already the poorest region of the Philippines are suffering. Prospective investors from overseas have been frightened off, the government admits. Tourists are staying away as well.

The currency, the peso, has plunged to a 19-month low, largely because of perceptions of political instability.

The group holding the 21 hostages on Jolo, the Abu Sayyaf, is the smaller and more extreme of two Muslim rebel groups. The other, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), walked out of peace talks in late April after government attacks, but has agreed to return to the table Tuesday.

The Abu Sayyaf also still holds five Filipino children and two teachers on the nearby island of Basilan who were kidnapped from two schools March 20.

While the Moro Islamic Liberation Front is generally considered to be fighting a war of ideology as well as bullets, the Abu Sayyaf's goals are much less clear. Their preliminary demands have ranged from an independent Islamic state to cash.

There is no question that extortion, kidnapping and piracy have been a part of life here for a long time.

"Kidnapping is like a livelihood," said Hader Glang, spokesman for the provincial governor on the island of Basilan. "Yes, because they have no money, no education."

Throughout the region, joining the military is a good move -- financially speaking.

Pfc. Andrew Apid, 21, earns about 10,000 pesos a month, or about US$245, enough to support his widowed mother.

As he recovers from the three bullets and grenade shrapnel that hit him during a battle with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, his anxious mother sits silently at his side in the Southern Command hospital.

Apid said he enlisted because it is a good job, but there is more to it than that.

When he was 6 or 7, he saw communist guerrillas kill his father.

"The rebels barged into our home, about six of them, shot him in the chest and beheaded him," Apid said, his voice passionate and his face intense. "I saw everything. That's why I have anger still in my heart. I want to kill every rebel we encounter."

Rebels changed 9-year-old Nova Verallo's life, too. The Abu Sayyaf held her for three weeks recently.

"All I want to do now is to go back to school," Nova said between long pauses, twisting her hands. "But Mom said we don't have money for school. No money for books and no money for food."

The family can't go back to their village because the traumatized child is afraid the rebels might come for her again.

Neither parent can find work in Isabela, Basilan's capital, where they have taken refuge. They are staying with relatives, moving from family to family since no one has much room or much food.

Like families, communities are fracturing as well.

While some organizations have joined across lines of faith to call for peace, some Muslims are discussing an ID system to protect themselves from suspicions that they are terrorists. Some Christians are forming vigilante groups.

"The Christians are now extra careful because they think all Muslims are the same," said Muhaimin Sakali, a prominent Muslim in Zamboanga. "So are the Muslims; they are taking extra precautions because they are afraid of the vigilantes."

Sakali, who has gone on pilgrimages to Mecca every year for 20 years, wants the Muslims of Mindanao to govern themselves under Islamic law.

But he also wants the fighting to end -- "Insya Allah," he said. "God willing."

"Nobody wins in war," Sakali said. "The government spends so much money; the MILF loses so many men."

One of the lost is a priest taken hostage by the Abu Sayyaf in Basilan, tortured and slain. His suffering outraged the Roman Catholic community, a large majority in most of the Philippines, as well as in much of Mindanao because of migration in recent decades.

The Rev. Martin Jumoad, at Santa Isabela Cathedral in Basilan, finds his principles at war with his emotions.

"My faith teaches me to forgive, but then my human dimension is also telling me, 'How can you forgive if they have already killed people, if they have already done injustice to the Christian community?"'

It would be better for the army to overrun the Abu Sayyaf, even if some hostages die, than to wait for the rebels to kill them all, he has decided.

"I think this is a moral option," Jumoad said. "When two evils meet and we have to choose the lesser evil, then I think God will understand."