Burnham left Manila for her Kansas hometown yesterday to be reunited with her children and rebuild her life shattered by the death of husband Martin during Friday’s bloody end to their 376-day captivity. Her three children are Jeff, 15, Mindy, 12, and Zach, 11.
"During our ordeal, we were repeatedly lied to by the Abu Sayyaf. They are not men of honor. They should be treated as common criminals. We support all efforts of the government in bringing these men to justice," she said in a pre-departure statement.
Burnham thanked her rescuers and said, "Part of my heart will always stay with the Filipino people." Martin, she said, "loved this country with all his heart."
Wearing a bright red shirt, freshly made up and with her hair neatly coifed, she smiled on arrival at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, but lost composure as she prepared to read her pre-departure statement.
Burnham, 43, was in a wheelchair, her right leg bandaged and propped up on a pillow due to a bullet wound she sustained during the rescue operation where Filipino nurse Edi-borah Yap was also slain.
It was Burnham’s first public appearance following a series of meetings over the weekend with President Arroyo and the children of Yap, who reportedly could have escaped during the hostage drama but opted to stay to take care of the American couple.
On Saturday, President Arroyo said the Philippine military would unleash its full might to crush the rebels now that they have no more hostages.
The Burnhams, married for 19 years, had been working as missionaries in the Philippines for the Salford, Florida-based New Tribes Mission (NTM) for 15 years.
A day after their arrival at the Dos Palmas beach resort to celebrate their 18th wedding anniversary in May last year, the couple was seized together with 18 others.
Gracia, who suffered a year of poor diet and frequent shootouts in the jungles of Mindanao, was rescued Friday when US-trained Filipino troops caught up with her kidnappers. Martin and Yap died during the two-hour gunbattle in the thickly forested jungle.
The Burnhams, from Wichita, Kansas were children of missionaries and Martin’s father, like his son, worked with local Philippine tribal groups. Martin, who studied high school in the Philippines, flew passengers and supplies across the Philippines as the NTM pilot. The couple was among the 3,000 foreign missionaries stationed in the country.
Gracia thank her friends and supporters, saying "We love you very much and we thank you for the precious memories you gave us during our 15 years here."
"We especially want to thank the military men, the Filipinos and the Americans who risked and even gave their lives in order to rescue us. May God bless these men in their ongoing efforts," she said.
She left together with her sister Mary Jones and sister-in-law Sheryl Spicer on board a Northwest Airlines flight that will bring her to Tokyo, Japan for a connecting flight to the US. Mary Jones flew in to Manila hours before the 7:12 a.m. departure to join Gracia.
The body of her husband is in a US military hospital in Okinawa, Japan.
A brother of Yap met with Gracia on Sunday and said the missionary told him that when the shooting started, she fell from a hammock with a gunshot wound and rolled down a slope before stopping her fall by grabbing a small tree branch.
She sobbed as she recounted how her husband Martin lay nearby bleeding in the chest, and she knew she had lost him, David Pamaran said.
Gracia told US officials that the campaign to snuff out the Abu Sayyaf was working, said Frank Jenista, a US Embassy spokesman.
Quoting Gracia, Jenista said that when they were kidnapped, about 100 rebels were in the group that held them. But during the past year, it dwindled to 14 men with 10 firearms.
Jenista told reporters that Gracia spent two wonderful days in Manila following a year in the jungles.
"I think it is hard to imagine that she will not return to the Philippines. Gracia has said that part of her heart will stay with the Filipino people. But of course, she has not seen her family, who has been waiting for her for one year. Then she can be with her family and rest and can think perhaps of returning back," Jenista said.
The five were being blamed for the deaths of Martin and Yap.
The US government has offered a $5-million bounty on the heads of the five Abu Sayyaf leaders, who apparently escaped during the rescue attempt.
Rescuers said Tilao, more famously known as Abu Sabaya, was among the gunmen seen at Friday’s gunbattle near Sirawai town.
Meanwhile, workers belonging to the militant Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) yesterday expressed grief over the killings of Martin and Yap.
However, the KMU insisted on their strong opposition to the government’s plan to extend the joint US-Philippine military exercises in a bid to crush the Abu Sayyaf.
"Workers are also grieving over the death of Ediborah Yap and Martin Burnham. They do not deserve to die such a gruesome death, they already had suffered when they were forcibly taken away from their families and held captive by the bandit group," KMU secretary general Elmer Labog said.
Labog said the deaths of the two should not be used by the government to justify its plan to approve the conduct of more joint military exercises. The current Balikatan exercise ends July.
He said additional joint military exercises would only lead to the militarization of the country.
Labog said KMU members would join protest actions on June 12 to dramatize their opposition to an extension of the joint military exercise.
More than 1,000 US troops were deployed to train and help the Filipino soldiers against the Abu Sayyaf. Philippine officials said the Americans provided intelligence data and help in planning the Friday rescue attempt.
The hostage crisis drew international condemnation of the Abu Sayyaf, with US President George W. Bush adding it to the US government’s list of terrorist groups.
Muslim youth and students in North and Central Luzon urged the government to finish the Abu Sayyaf.
Amerol Didaagun, president of the 5,000-strong Philippine Muslim Students Association chapter in Northern and Luzon provinces, said the government should act now in order not to give the bandits a breather that will enable them to go on a kidnapping spree again.
Meanwhile, Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr. described as "failure of military intelligence" the bloody "encounter" between the military and the Abu Sayyaf that ended in the deaths of Martin and Yap.
Pimentel clarified that he was not blaming the rank-and-file soldiers, whom he said were only following orders.
"Looking at it from afar, I think there was a failure of intelligence. The reason I say that is that up to the time the encounter took place, I thought all along that the Burnhams and Yap were still with the bandits in Basilan," Pimentel told reporters.
In Malacañang, acting Press Secretary Silvestre Afable denied accusations by the opposition that Friday’s rescue operation was a failure because of the death of two hostages, saying the encounter was the result of more than a month-long planning by military commanders on the ground.
National Security Adviser Roilo Golez, meanwhile, said that no reward could be given to a father and son who led government troops to the hideout of the Abu Sayyaf in Zamboanga del Norte because their information did not lead to the arrest of any of the rebel leaders. — With reports from AP, AFP, Reuters, Mayen Jaymalin, Artemio Dumlao, Cecille Suerte Felipe, Paolo Romero