Updates

That is the question.

ABS-CBN’s official position is that it is not paying any ransom for its news team, led by television reporter Ces Drilon, which was kidnapped in Sulu together with MSU professor and peace advocate Octavio Dinampo. The network said in a statement:

ABS-CBN News journalists Ces Drilon, Jimmy Encarnacion, and Angelo Valderama have been kidnapped for ransom.

ABS-CBN News is doing everything it can to help the families of its kidnapped journalists through this harrowing ordeal.

However, ABS-CBN News will abide by its policy not to pay ransom because this would embolden kidnap for ransom groups to abduct other journalists, putting more lives at risk.

However, Chief Superintendent Joel Goltiao, police director for the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), confirmed that negotiations had begun with the abductors, and that there is a “great possibility” that the journalists would be freed, but he “cannot give an exact date”. He added that although the official policy is not to pay the kidnappers, discussions on ransom can’t be helped (“hindi waiwasan”). Reports say the Abu Sayyaf kidnappers are asking for P10 million to P30 million. Read the rest of this entry »

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Ces Drilon is a veteran broadcast journalist who has been at the center of many an unfolding news story, often under perilous circumstances. She was first on the scene during the failed putsch and siege of the Manila Peninsula in November of last year. No stranger to danger, she has done many features on Mindanao, and seemed particularly at home in the Sulu and Basilan areas, where she covered numerous newsworthy events for ABS-CBN.

She is now in the unenviable position of being in the news herself. Yesterday, rumors had been circulating that Ms. Drilon and two of her cameramen, Jimmy Encarnacion and Angelo Valderrama, were seized by Abu Sayyaf militants in the village of Kulasi in the town of Maimbung, Sulu. She was with Octavio Dinampo, a professor from the Mindanao State University, who was helping Ms. Drilon in her coverage. They were reportedly taken to the hinterlands of Indanan town. Read the rest of this entry »

Read also: Blackwater Worldwide and the Role of Mercenaries in 21st Century Armed Conflicts Part I

Like it or not, 21st century warfare, characterized by areas of “low-intensity conflict”, will be influenced by entities like Blackwater, which has given a corporate face to the previously shady world of mercenaries.

Inevitably, Blackwater found its way to the Philippines and has been quietly but very actively recruiting personnel from our underpaid and overworked (though generally resourceful and courageous) members of the armed forces. This caused a flap a few years back when its recruitment efforts were exposed by the media. Read the rest of this entry »