In God's name? - Gotcha

"Our demands were not met, so we had no choice." Thus did Abu Sabaya justify his terror band's beheading of two Basilan teachers they've held hostage along with 27 others, mostly schoolchildren. Spoken like a true fanatic, that fringe subhuman species that George Santayana defined as one who redoubles his effort when he forgets his aim.

Sabaya gleefully recounted to news radio anchors how they went about their business of killing helpless, hogtied civilians. He said his teenage cohorts fought for the "honor" of carrying it out. They sat the teachers on stools, made them bow their heads . . . it was over in seconds.

Did he feel happy with the deed? Did he feel more manly than ever before? Did he feel avenged? One wonders what's going on in Sabaya's mind, now that soldiers are assaulting his hideout and he is threatening to kill five more hostages. One thing sure: it wasn't the aim he set out to achieve at the onset.

Three weeks ago, Sabaya's Abu Sayyaf band had tried to overrun an Army camp near his town. Repulsed, they ran to the nearest schoolhouse and grabbed a priest and more than 50 teachers and children, Christian and Muslim alike. Why they had attacked the camp is spelled out in Abu Sayyaf's creed of supposed Islamic purity -- to rid the island-province of all infidels who are the source of Muslims' poverty and neglect. Why they took Muslim children hostage as well became apparent when vigilantes professing to be Muslims too kidnapped relatives of Abu Sayyaf chief Khadafy Janjalani for a prisoner exchange: it wasn't a religious war at all; it was a fight for village supremacy.

That much was explained by Basilan's congressman and governor, both Muslim, as they competed in the first few days of the hostage drama for the heroics of freeing the hostages through negotiation. That much eventually unraveled as learned Muslim leaders denounced Sabaya's misadventure as un-Islamic and contrary to teachings of the Holy Koran.

Trapped in the jungle clearing where they are hiding, Sabaya demanded food: 200 sacks of rice. Given only half the amount but nourished just the same, Sabaya sought to bring the religious dimension back into a fight from which he was losing moral ground. He demanded that matinee idol Robin Padilla, a recent Muslim convert, be brought to him to serve as messenger to the central government. Through Padilla, he also tried to give his fight an international ring to it. Aside from insisting on the dismantling of all Christian crosses in the island and the freeing of two Abu Sayyaf members arrested for an earlier kidnapping, he asked for freedom for three international terrorists now serving prison terms in New York and California.

At the start of the Army assault on Black Saturday, Sabaya told cable-TV news his band was prepared to fight for three months. He tried to cheer up his fellow-kidnappers, who believe they are doing it all for the glory of God, that they were winning, that the Army had suffered 200 casualties so far, and that they had shot down a helicopter gunship.

A lawyer-psychiatrist once analyzed a religious fanatic as someone who does what he's sure God would do if He only knew the facts of the case. To keep himself going, Sabaya must be sleeplessly trying to convince himself that what he's doing is what God would have wanted. Fellow-Muslims believe otherwise, knowing that God is not cruel, and that He knows all the facts of the case -- past, present, future.

RP has a new chess national master, Romeo Lopez, who earned his rating at Sigma Kappa Pi's First Founders Cup at Clark Field, Pampanga last weekend. With more than 90 participants, the open tournament also had NM Darwin Laylo, NM Rolly Martinez and IM Luis Chiong IV copping first, second and third places, respectively. Two dozen other titled players joined the games sponsored by Empire East Land Inc. and Petron.

INTERACTION. Manuel C. Diaz, aol.com: I hope Napocor's sale (Gotcha, 19 Apr. 2000) won't end up like Iligan Steel, whose bankruptcy ended domestic steel production. If Napocor goes bankrupt, we end up with no electricity that will in turn bankrupt the country.

Florence Balolong, Manila North Harbor: Help, there's "martial law" here! With SWAT teams in full battle gear last Sunday (Apr. 16), Phil. Ports Authority suddenly took over arrastre and stevedoring operations at Piers 6, 8, 12 and 14, Terminal 16, Marine Slipway and Isla Puting Bato. The PPA takeover was in anticipation of a strike planned for Holy Wednesday. The strike, in turn, was to protest PPA's plan to grant arrastre operations to only one darling contractor-a presidential crony who also wants to buy Napocor. With this as backdrop, PPA did not renew contracts of existing operators, and let them stay merely on carry-over basis. Present operators naturally are against E.O.-59, which will award the port operation to the crony by negotiated bid, which would lead to monopoly. But PPA forced one operator to sign an agreement to stop protesting the EO, lest his ship not be allowed to dock.

Sen. Tito Guingona and Rep. Roilo Golez have promised to look into this, Florence.

Ernani Estepa, yahoo.com: Government should scrap RA 7171, Tobacco Tax. Public money just goes into a pol's private flue-curing farm.

Doy Yuson, i-next,net: Does the good Speaker know that water service of his Southwell Waterworks Inc. in our (his) subdivision, Camella Springville City, Bacoor, Cavite, has turned from bad to worse? We're lucky to have one hour of water in trickles on Saturdays and Sundays.

Thank you, Roland Orbe, Terrence Go, Oscar S. Castillo, Amadeo dela Cruz, Vivian Syyap, Zen Udani, Bunny Arville of New York, Manny E. of brunet.bn.

YOUR BODY. New long-term data on Celebrex, the first to market in a new class of arthritis drugs, show that patients taking four times the recommended dose had fewer side effects than patients taking older treatments. More on this in cnn.com/health.

Last Wednesday's item on self-CPR came from Rochester General Hospital's Health Cares, and was published in Heart Response journal of The Mended Hearts Inc.

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