EDITORIAL - Out of captivity

Coinciding with the arrival of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Irish priest Michael Sinnott emerged from a month of captivity in Zamboanga yesterday. Whether or not ransom was paid for his safe release, no one is saying. Sinnott himself would only say that his kidnappers were rogue elements and not regular members of the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front, contrary to the accusations of the military and Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno.

Sinnott came to that conclusion probably because, according to some reports, MILF members themselves delivered him to safety. This is not strange for the same group accused of responsibility for the kidnapping. But it gives the government a graceful way out of its threat to abandon the peace process, which Clinton, incidentally, lauded yesterday.

That peace process will receive a bigger boost if Sinnott’s captors are caught, prosecuted and punished. If any ransom or “board and lodging fee” was paid, it should be used simply to lead pursuers to the kidnappers and arrest them. Regardless of which group is staging kidnappings, crooks must be caught so they cannot commit more crimes. The best way to guarantee their survival is by making them reap profits from crime, and allowing them to enjoy those profits.

Sinnott is not the first foreign priest to be kidnapped by members of what was initially tagged as the Abu Sayyaf, although those initial reports might have also been accurate since it’s hard to tell who belongs to which group in the conflict areas of Mindanao. The 79-year-old Columban priest was relaxing in his garden in Pagadian City when he was snatched by at least six armed men at dusk on Oct. 11. He will not be the last religious worker to be kidnapped unless the government shows lawless elements in Mindanao that kidnapping does not pay and criminals must face the law.