Abu Sayyaf in Bohol

Jay Valleser

I HAD to rush home to my home province due to the untimely death of my younger sister Tess. She never got married and therefore, we, her siblings were her only family.  Like any death in the family, it was a sort of reunion for all of us. There are now just four of us left. Being the eldest, not attending to our only single member of the family was not an option. Tess, you are sadly missed but lovingly remembered.

But this column is not about death. I arrived in Bohol just when the intrusion of Abu Sayyaf into the province was hogging the headlines of local news papers and radio news. I can understand that. While Mindanaoans are having the Abu Sayyaf for years, the Boholanos are just drawn to the issue just recently.

A blow-by-blow account of the pursuit operation against the bandits was on the air waves. Cell phones were transmitting every bit of news and chismis on the event. If the Abu Sayyaf used the Bohol intrusion as a diversionary tactic to cover up their more serious operation somewhere, the bandits have succeeded immensely.

If the group used it with the purpose of propagating its notoriety in order to please their foreign donors/sponsors through media headlines, it scored an eyeball.

Any military tactician worth his salt will never attempt to do what the Abu Sayyaf did if the purpose was to score a successful combat victory or do some nefarious acts the group is known of like kidnapping-foransom.

Sending a group to a place where the spoken dialect is very much different from the intruders is one reason I suspected the event was staged. The elements of Abu Sayyaf could hide their heads under the sandy beaches and muddy mangroves of Bohol but still, it would be easy to pick them out like picking out an elephant in a population of otters in a beach.

Bohol has a terrain much different from what we have here in Mindanao and a population so curious and inquisistive. It is one reason all the Abu Sayyaf intruders got killed.

The bandits came on board “kumpits” that looked and navigated inland on a river where it aroused the curiosity of the villagers. Nothing that looks a bit similar to what the group used ever navigated the Inabanga river. How naive could they think they could camouflage their presence among the simple Boholano folks!

Lastly, the bandits underestimated the Boholanos. Yes, its people speak differently from one town to the other. Yes, they are not strangers to foreigners as tourists roam around the province. Yes, Boholanos can look so docile, kind and hospitable. But they are not naive!

And lastly, a warning to all crime groups–next time you try to hide and escape from pursuing government troops, please try first to do a surveillance if it’s simple. I was told that whenever a place was suspected to be where the remnants of the Abu Sayyaf took refuge, Boholano drone-enthusiasts swarm not with firearms but with cameras installed on their drones.

Whewwww! Indeed, a million peso reward for every head of a dead or a living Abu Sayyaf member can work wonders!