Robot: He lived and died by the gun

Commander Robot lived and died by the gun.

And it was by arming the Moro people that Robot, whose real name was Ghalib Andang, believed he could remind the government just how strong a force Muslims are in the country.

But for most Tausug religious leaders, Andang and his fellow bandits were believed to have brought only shame to the entire province of Sulu.

Andang was killed Tuesday along with two other Abu Sayyaf commanders and 20 other inmates after police stormed a maximum-security jail in Bicutan, Taguig City to end a 30-hour jail siege.

The Camp Bagong Diwa jail holds a majority of the suspects believed responsible for the worst attacks by Islamic extremists in the Philippines.

When the dust settled, Andang, Nadzmi Sabdullah (alias Commander Global) and Alhamser Limbong (alias Kosovo) lay dead.

Political leaders in Sulu never thought that the diminutive Andang — once a janitor at the Jolo provincial capitol — would one day become a notorious kidnapper.

In the extremist Abu Sayyaf, Andang found a home and masterminded kidnap-for-ransom sprees in the south – the most notorious being the abduction of 21 foreign tourists and resort workers from the Malaysian island of Sipadan in 2000.

Soon, the unusually named terror leader — his alias reportedly came from his habit of doing the "robot" dance once popular in the ’80s — made worldwide headlines.

"As a budding commander in the Abu Sayyaf, (Andang) always dreamed of getting attention. He was zealous about making himself known to the international community," a Tausug schoolteacher in Patikul, Sulu, who personally knew Andang, told The STAR.

Sabdullah meanwhile was more concerned with kidnapping than anything else.

Sabdullah was said to be the most intelligent and educated among the Abu Sayyaf leaders. He was alleged to be the brains behind the hostage crises in Sipadan and the Palawan resort in 2001, as well as the raid on the Pearl Farm beach resort in Samal Island, Davao in 2001.

The following year, Sabdullah was arrested by authorities in General Santos City.

Both Sabdullah and Andang were tagged as ruthless, but Commander Robot was not always a wayward rebel.

Andang once served as security aide at Sulu’s provincial capitol in the late 1980s.

In his late 30s, he joined the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), formerly the largest Muslim separatist rebel group. But Andang was dropped from the MNLF’s roster for his involvement in criminal activities – cattle rustling, armed robbery, gun running and drug trafficking.

It was in 1993 that Andang began consorting with equally notorious commanders in towns surrounding the Sulu capital of Jolo, and started planning high-profile kidnappings.

Indeed, Andang’s initial entry to the underworld was written in blood.

In December 1993, he and about 24 of his cohorts snatched American Oblate missionary Clarence Bertelsman while he was officiating Mass in a chapel inside the compound of Sulu’s fortified provincial police office, right in the heart of Jolo.

Followers of then MNLF chairman Nur Misuari, who was negotiating peace with the government at the time, managed to block the escape route of Andang and his men. After a brief gun battle, the rebels rescued Bertelsman, who was wounded in the ensuing crossfire.

"He (Andang) deliberately planned the abduction of Bertelsman because apart from his being an American citizen, he belongs to a big Catholic congregation which has a base in the Vatican," said a senior Tausug staffer of the local government department in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

Bertelsman died some four years later from a heart disease.

The abduction prompted the Dominican, Oblate and Marist congregations, which operate schools in Jolo and surrounding island provinces, to replace all foreign missionaries in the province with Filipinos.

Andang gained even more notoriety after helping other Abu Sayyaf commanders carry out the abduction of two Spanish nuns working in Sulu, as well as the later abduction of Charles Walthon, a linguist who was studying the Tausug dialect and culture.

Walthon was kidnapped in an island town in the province.

Andang may not have directly participated in the two abductions, but sources from Sulu, among them members of the Islamic community, confirmed that he provided the suspects with firearms, fuel and motorboats to hasten their escape.

Boon Or Bane?

Andang virtually lived and breathed bullets, according to people close to him.

He was so fond of firearms that he stockpiled them in places where he hid as a fugitive. He spent most of the money he allegedly earned from kidnap-for-ransom operations to purchase military-type assault rifles.

Although Andang was feared in communities where he hid, he was said to have been close to the people for his practice of sharing whatever ransom money he collected with poor villagers.

He also reportedly fed impoverished Tausugs in mosques during the break of each fasting day during the yearly observance of Ramadan, where Muslims, as a religious obligation, abstain from food and drink from dawn till dusk for one lunar cycle, or 30 days.

During clandestine meetings with his supporters and his cohorts from other Abu Sayyaf bands, Andang would always call for the arming of Tausugs, regardless of age.

"Because he believed that only by possessing guns, by keeping guns in their homes, would Tausugs remain a Moro force the government had to reckon with," a former mayor of a Sulu town told The STAR.

But no matter what strong beliefs he may have held, Andang and his men were largely regarded as mere bandits.

"They did not fight for the welfare of our people, for the protection of our religion. They were bandits who disobeyed all of the teachings in the Holy Quran. It was Allah’s will that he would die a violent death," said a Tausug physician at the ARMM’s health department.

Sabdullah was also seen as a nefarious criminal, but the man described as "calculating" also expressed political ideals on problems hounding Muslims in the country.

Interviewed in October 2002 by The STAR, Sabdullah spoke about the secessionist problem in Mindanao and jihad in fluent English.

Neatly attired for the exchange in his prison cell at the Davao del Norte Provincial Rehabilitation Center in Tagum City, Sabdullah said the fight of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) to secede was "a purely political matter."

The MILF took over the battle for an independent Islamic state after the MNLF signed a peace treaty with the government in 1996.

"Religion is already included in the political effort. Culture has nothing to do with it. The culture of the Muslim is different but not enough basis for secessionism," Sabdullah explained.

The STAR asked the Abu Sayyaf commander if the problem in Mindanao was economic in nature, to which he replied, "The problem is not economic because Mindanao is rich. The problem is in the political system."

Jihad, he said, was Islamic politics.

"To separate from the existing state is the MILF’s ultimate goal and Jihad is the means," he said. "Jihad is not just war. Life itself is Jihad. In Jihad there is politics, economics and form of government, including religion."

He went on to clarify misconceptions about waging jihad.

"Remember the Muslim does not separate the church and the state. Jihad is a struggle within one’s self and Islam is a way of life. But there is also that other jihad which calls for Muslims to act violently, just like the Moro wars, which were results of the relations between the Muslim community and the other non-Muslim communities," Sabdullah said.

He went on: "It is then that the lesser jihad is allowed when there is oppression, or if Islam is not allowed to be practiced, which then becomes the basis for declaring jihad."

The STAR also asked him about the role of Muslim priests, the Ulamas, in the way of life of their constituents.

"The Ulamas possess a strong influence in the Muslim way of life. They are respected and seen as holy men. They can also handle community very well as many Ulamas have degrees which means that everything that they say or do would be based on the belief in Muhammad and Allah," he said.

But in the end, Sabdullah said the MILF would only soften its stand on secessionism once it sees certain changes in the way the government deals with the areas it considers as its territories.

"The MILF will soften its stand once Ummah Ideal is granted in certain areas because that is exactly what the MILF wants," Sabdullah said.

And to the Muslims, Ummah Ideal is the very ideal way of life.