Arroyo to Burnhams: I told you so

She told them so.

President Arroyo said yesterday the families of kidnapped missionary couple Martin and Gracia Burnham should have heeded the Phi-lippine government’s no-ransom policy and desisted from dealing with the couple’s Abu Sayyaf captors.

Martin’s parents Paul and Oreta Burnham did not categorically deny that they paid ransom.

"We don’t want to comment on anything like that... We are hoping they will be released," Paul told the ABS-CBN News Channel yesterday, evading a question on who was brokering the ransom payment.

"We’re a long ways from there. We don’t know... We just hope things will work out... We’re just hoping they’ll get out soon," he added.

At the same time, Paul said the Burnham family "appreciated what the Philippine government has been doing to get them out" but did not elaborate.

The President said during her weekly radio program that she empathizes with the couple’s families in the US but the government has adopted a no-ransom policy because the Abu Sayyaf simply cannot be trusted.

"I’m sorry that (Martin and Gracia) are still there... But we already told them not to negotiate (for ransom) because these bandits cannot really be trusted," Mrs. Arroyo said in Filipino.

"They were negotiating without the government’s consent. Now they are complaining that the Abu Sayyaf have no word of honor," she added.

But Paul Burnham, who lives in Rose Hill, Kansas, appealed to the bandits to contact him via the local Zamboanga City radio station, dxRZ Radyo Agong, which the Abu Sayyaf have frequently used to broadcast statements.

In a telephone interview with The STAR’s Washington bureau over the weekend, Paul emphasized that he needed to talk with the Abu Sayyaf.

"We need to speak to them over the radio. We are waiting for their call. We need to find out more," said the elderly Burnham, expressing hope Martin and Gracia and their fellow captive, Filipino nurse Deborah Yap, would be released before May 27, the anniversary of their kidnapping from Palawan last year.

The father called dxRZ Radyo Agong last week to disclose that he had cut a deal with an Abu Sayyaf member who identified himself as Abu Sulaiman.

Paul declined to give details of the deal but the US tabloid Washington Times reported in March that the Burnham family had paid $300,000 to have the hostages released on March 13.

On March 26, the Burnham family were again told Martin and Gracia would be released soon but the Abu Sayyaf later sent word that the couple would not be released until "additional demands" are met.

"We’re not really sure exactly what they want and I just really don’t want to comment on that for now. We have to find out more," he added.

Martin and Gracia, members of the New Tribes Mission, have been working in the Philippines for the past 15 years and were celebrating their wedding anniversary when they were kidnapped with 19 other guests of a resort in Palawan on May 27, 2001.

They were immediately brought by motorized banca to the Abu Sayyaf’s strongholds in Basilan.

On June 2, 2001, the Burnhams and their fellow hostages were dragged along in a daring raid on the Jose Torres Memorial in Lamitan town, east of the island’s capital of Isabela City.

The military managed to cordon the area overnight and prepared to lay siege on the small hospital but by morning the rebels and their hostages were gone. They had even seized four more nurses, including Yap, from the hospital.

Most of the hostages from Palawan were released, supposedly after the payment of ransom, or escaped during the siege on the hospital. The others, like US national Guillermo Sobero of California, were killed as the rebels fled to their jungle lairs. - With wire services