MANILA, Philippines—It all started with betrayal, according to freed broadcast journalist Ces Drilon of ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corp.

“I’ve been in and out of Mindanao, and I want to understand the situation here. Sa kasamaang palad (Unfortunately), there was some betrayal involved, and we were kidnapped,” she told reporters early Wednesday in Zamboanga City.

But Drilon refused to elaborate on how she, her cameramen Angelo Valderama and Jimmy Encarnacion, and peace advocate Octavio Dinampo were betrayed.

“We’ll get there. We are cooperating with the investigation and we condemn [the kidnappers] for what they did,” said the 46-year-old mother of four.

Drilon and her crew were in Sulu province purportedly to interview a leading member of the Abu Sayyaf when they were kidnapped by armed men on June 8. Dinampo, a professor of Mindanao State University who has access to the bandit group, served as their guide, as did Juamil Biyaw.

Marama Hashim, the driver hired by the ABS-CBN team, had said in a sworn statement that it was Biyaw who led Drilon et al. to their abductors. He described Biyaw as a military agent.

Hashim said Biyaw ordered him to stop the vehicle upon reaching Tubig Adjid in Indanan town, and casually led the group to the forested area. He said Biyaw returned alone some four hours later.

But Biyaw, who subsequently showed up at a military camp in Sulu, denied this. He claimed that upon reaching the armed men’s lair, Dinampo told him to go home.

Brig. Gen. Juancho Sabban, chief of the Sulu-based Task Force Comet, said Biyaw was released from the Marines’ custody after denying the allegations against him.

‘I trusted him’

In a brief phone conversation Wednesday with Inquirer Mindanao, Dinampo admitted that Biyaw had been helping him in peace-building work, such as resolving clan and family feuds in Sulu.

“I trusted this [man]. I thought I could trust him with my life. Well, it turns out I was wrong,” Dinampo said.

“I’ve been so trusting of people, but I have learned my lesson,” he said.

Dinampo said the kidnappers divested him of his wallet, mobile phone, and “everything that I had with me.”

The professor also said Biyaw “left our fate in the hands of our captors, and he implicated me [in the kidnapping]. But I know the truth will prevail ultimately, and I know Allah is fair and just.”

Dinampo was being debriefed by the Philippine National Police in Zamboanga City at the time of the phone interview.

PNP Director General Avelino Razon said investigators would compare the statements of the four ex-captives and driver Hashim to that of Biyaw.

New perspective

Facing reporters in a 15-minute press conference at the Manila airport ramp Wednesday afternoon, Drilon spoke of a new perspective in her life as a journalist.

“You know, I always go after the story sometimes not thinking of my loved ones, my mom, my kids,” she said, her tears starting to gather.

“And this time, I guess, I don’t know... I also need to think of those who love me, that they are already getting hurt. It was so unthinking, irresponsible, in a way, to do that to my children, to my mother, my sisters, my brother, put them through an ordeal like that... And the children [of my crew].”

Drilon and her crew flew to Manila in a private jet some 14 hours after their release.

They were in the company of Sen. Loren Legarda and ABS-CBN News and Current Affairs head Maria Ressa.

“I feel so great, very happy. We did not run out of smiles while in the plane. And it was a big deal to have surpassed this ordeal where you didn’t know whether you’d live or not. You learn a lot and it will strengthen you,” Drilon said in a mix of Filipino and English.

She added: “This is the toughest trial I have ever had in my life, and I’m sure for Angel and Jimmy also. And there were many lessons: Trust in your team, trust in each other to survive. And ... listen to your boss.”

Disobedience

Looking back to June 8, the day of their abduction, Drilon admitted to having broken coverage protocol to some degree when she went ahead with a planned interview with a member of the Abu Sayyaf.

“I want to make it clear [that] while my office knew to a certain extent what my story was, there were instructions I disobeyed. I was hard-headed at one point, and I disregarded some warnings. And I put the lives of my team in danger... It’s a very sobering experience for me,” Drilon said.

She said she had been aiming for a story on the new leadership of the Abu Sayyaf and prospects for peace negotiations between the bandit group and the government.

“Maybe we (she and Dinampo) were just both naive. I wanted a story that would somehow [explain], because everybody [was asking], who are the leaders of the Abu Sayyaf, where are they headed,” Drilon said.

And Dinampo “felt there were opportunities, an opening,” toward talks with the government, because the peace advocate saw the new Abu Sayyaf leadership as “more moderate,” she said.

But the coverage took a terrifying turn when her group was abducted and held in a jungle several hours away by foot from the nearest town.

Asked to comment on speculations that Dinampo might have been a party to the crime, Drilon said: “I trust him.”

“Our suspicion is that our guide was betrayed,” she said.

As she did in Zamboanga City, Drilon said she and her crew would continue coordinating with authorities to pursue their captors.

She said their captors were “careful not to give their real names.”

Encarnacion said he saw different faces each day, and hence could not say exactly how many strangers held him and the others.

Wretched conditions

Asked to describe the conditions in which she and others were held, Drilon quickly said: “Wretched! Horrible!”

She said there was no toilet to speak of, that meals consisted of a platito (saucer) of instant noodles, and that they slept on hammocks or sacks laid on the ground.

“Then it will rain and you’ll sleep with your clothes wet. It was really bad,” said Drilon, looking refreshed now in a white button-down shirt, jeans, black rubber shoes and polka-dotted socks.

Throughout their ordeal, Drilon et al. felt death coming close with their captors sometimes tying them up and threatening to kill them.

“There were many times I thought it was the end. There was the time we were tied up and beaten with M-14 [rifles]. It was terrifying,” said Encarnacion, who managed to bring back the team’s camera in one piece.

At one point, the kidnappers threatened to behead Valderama and have Encarnacion videotape the murder, Drilon said.

“I asked for [my crew’s] forgiveness because, of course, I am a reporter and they are my team, and whatever would happen to them should be my accountability... But we are one. We did not blame each other that we ended up there; we were strong, and when one of us was weak, we made him strong,” she said.

Eye-opener

Besides the trauma of captivity, a discovery in the jungle has left another lasting mark on Drilon.

“I don’t want to justify what they’re doing—they are bandits and we’re cooperating with authorities so they’d be caught—but I think we must also understand why they are doing that. There were bandits who were 12 years old, 17, 15, and they were holding guns,” she said, adding:

“Your eyes will be opened. You’d think, why are these children holding guns instead of holding notebooks and studying?”

Asked by a fellow ABS-CBN reporter if she would ever return to Sulu, Drilon said with a quip to her boss, Ressa: “The office will not allow me anymore... But Mindanao is vast, right, Maria?”

Asked when she would return to TV, Drilon laughed and quipped: “On TV? When the mosquito bites have cleared up.”