The kidnapping of 21 foreign tourists by self-styled Muslim rebels in the Philippines two months ago has come into the news again with the Filipino government's announcement that it is considering paying the $21 million ransom they demanded. Evidently unnoticed in the midst of all this, a lone hostage held by the same group has emerged with a detailed account of the experience. PNS editor Rene Ciria-Cruz interviewed ex-hostage Andres Amante soon after he was freed. Photo available; e-mail slouie@pacificnews.org for details.

QUEZON CITY, PHILIPPINES -- As the fate of 21 tourists held for $21 million ransom by self-styled rebels in the Philippines grows more uncertain, a hostage kidnapped earlier by the same group has been released thanks to cash paid by relatives.

Andres Amante, 24, a Filipino accountant, was taken Feb. 15 in the village of Talipao. Seven heavily armed men, identifying themselves as members of Abu Sayyaf, stopped the van carrying him and 12 other staff members of the Philippine Federation for Natural Family Planning which was conducting a literacy campaign nearby. The armed men abducted Amante, the only one who could not speak the local vernacular, and let the rest go with a warning not to alert authorities. "We are the men of Commander Robot," they yelled.

The group walked for three hours in the parched countryside until they reached a hideout. They stayed there for a month. "For the first two weeks I cried like a child every night -- I missed my wife and Elaine, our two-year-old baby," Amante said.

The abductors apparently came to trust Amante and he moved in with the family of a fighter code-named Top 40. He grew close to Top 40's wife and 15-year-old son, and recalls the poverty of his captors. "Most are very young. Many are illiterate," he said. They didn't so much have a political program as a wish list -- they want schools, health centers, etc."

On April 23, Abu Sayyaf raided a tourist resort in Sipadan, Malaysia, and captured three Germans, two French nationals, two Finns, two South Africans, nine Malaysians, one Lebanese and two Filipinos. The kidnapers want $21 million from various governments for their release.

Amante was brought in to serve as interpreter. At first the foreigners wouldn't believe he also was a hostage because Amante seemed at ease with with the kidnappers and was carrying an M-16 rifle. But Amante's gun was a prop -- it had no firing pin. He was told to carry it because being weaponless in the open countryside with a group of heavily armed men would mark him as a hostage to cops or rival outlaws. As for being at ease, Amante said trusting his captors' judgment helped him survive mentally.

"The foreigners were very scared, I really pitied them," recalls Amante. "They had wounds on their feet from the endless walking. They looked dehydrated and exhausted."

But their worst ordeal involved military operations by government troops against their captors. On April 28, soldiers fired from only 100 yards away. Luckily, the hostages fled at the first sign of trouble, says Amante, or everyone in the hut would have been killed.

"All of us were crawling in the mud crying hysterically," he says.

"Especially when mortars and howitzer barrages started coming. Oh, my God, the branches above us were splintering, the ground was shaking."

Abu Sayyaf moved to another hideout but government troops attacked again. "My impression was that the military was willing to sacrifice us," Amante says, shaking his head.

The group then walked for five days, without flashlights, at night, stopping only to eat and nap until they reached their main base at Patikul. There negotiations with government emissaries began and the hostages' situation improved slightly, Amante says.

In Manila, meanwhile, Amante's nonprofit group reported the kidnapping to authorities but got very little help. Bitterly, they watched Amante disappear from the government's radar when the seizure of the foreign hostages hit the headlines.

The abductors initially wanted $200,000 for Amante. While quietly raising money, Amante's co-workers told the abductors that his wife, Ellen, was taking over the negotiations. With the help Emily Dimo, the group's project coordinator in Jolo where the hostages are being held, she got permission to visit Amante.

At the camp, Dimo, a Muslim, begged the kidnappers to accept $5,000 -- all the family could afford -- and the Abu Sayyaf relented. Amante was formally turned over to the head of the Office of Muslim Affairs on May 23. When he arrived at the airport in Manila, President Joseph Estrada's assistants whisked him to the presidential palace for a photo-op.

"The caption said the government secured his release," says Emily Dimo. "It's a lie. The family, we, did everything."

Andres Amante says he can't shake off the desperate poverty he saw and keeps thinking of Top 40's 15-year-old curly haired boy who will grow up schooled only in the ways of banditry and war.