Abu Sayyaf group members dwindled to 379 last June, from a peak of 1,270 four years back. Armed Forces head counts shows 46 ASG leaders were run to the ground. All had bounties on their heads. The Supreme Court, this week, confirmed life sentences for 17 ASG members for razing a Basilan hospital and abducting three nurses.
Marines in Sulu beat back an attack by “Awliya,” a new band. Two soldiers and 13 attackers were killed. Tuan Awilya was among the rebels who rejected peace offers in the 1990s. Today’s “Awilya” has links to ASG, the military claims.
Murder to mutilation of dead soldiers have been pinned on ASG. They held three International Red Cross workers hostage. ABS-CBN paid ransom to spring broadcaster Ces Drilon.
Thus, ASG’s image is that of a terrorist group, packed with jobless, poorly schooled Muslim youth. An assumption anchors this perception, namely, a hierarchy of authority, with defined goals, directs ASG. It resembles structured groups, like, say, the Provisional Irish Republican Army.
The reality is more complex, assert Eduardo Ugarte of Global Terrorism Research Centre at Monash University and Mark Macdonald Turner at University of Canberra. ASG is “part of broader and shifting “dark networks.” These webs of kinship, culture and politics enmesh many, including elected officials, military police to insurgents.
Ugarte and Turner title their analysis “What Is the ‘Abu Sayyaf’? How Labels Shape Reality” The Pacific Review (London) published their study. Perceptions morph into “reality” and mold policy, they write. “What things are called is incomparably more important than what they are.
Both assembled scattered data to “construct reality that, until this Pacific Review issue, has not been coherently analyzed.” Tumahubong, Sipadan and Palawan kidnappings, by ASG, are used as case studies.
The notion that ASG “is a distinct group is an illusion,” they conclude. “Classificatory labels, employed by the military and media, are meaningless: Islamists in southern Philippines are not concentrated in a discrete collectivity.”
Instead, they straddle MILF, MNLF and communal alliances. They’ve evolved into random networks. Power and leadership are haphazardly distributed. No actor or group makes binding decisions for others..
ASG “is not an organized phalanx of mujahideen,” noted Julkipli Wadi, a leading political Islam scholar. .Rather, this jama’a (grouping) is a loose, almost-chaotic grouping of disenchanted Muslim youth.”
An Inquirer count, in late 2000, identified a welter of 11 “commanders”: six in Sulu, four in Basilan and one in Zamboanga. They control followers even when they tie up with other bands.
ASG’s demands “can change from moment to moment,” Inquirer’s Noralyn Mustafa commented on the March 2009 kidnapping of Red Cross workers. “After one commander agreed to terms, the following day he’ll say, after ‘consulting’ his co-commanders, they refused to comply. And negotiations begin anew—from zero.”
“Interpersonal linkages” command “overriding importance.” “Groups survive because their leader crafts a network of relatives and clients. “Blood ties are very strong in Sulu,” notes researcher Victor Taylor. People don’t think in terms of organizational labels, whether Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) or Abu Sayyaf. Halo-halo na yan (They’re all mixed together).”
In the 2000 kidnappings, assorted ASG groups presented demands. These ranged from meeting movie actor and Muslim convert Robin Padilla, tearing down of Christian crosses, implementation of fishing laws and, of course, money. These shifted as each commander advanced his own set of claims.
ASG “does not know what it wants,” observed Glenda Gloria, Newsbreak editor and co-author of “Under the Crescent Moon.” “It does not know where it wants to go, or how to articulate problems of Muslims in Mindanao beyond what [has] been articulated by other groups …It is wrong for government to assume that it is dealing with a cohesive organization with a set of doctrines, rules or solid leadership.”
“Coveting each other’s captives,” ASG groups frequently squabbled over money, recalls negotiator Roberto Aventajado. “The jungle did not have a single master. No one could guarantee anyone’s safety because no one’s writ ran unopposed across the wilds of Talipao… Not even ‘Robot’ (slain ASG kidnapper) was safe.”
Did Gen. Guillermo Ruiz coin the label “Abu Sayyaf Group”? There are more mundane but likely reasons. “Abu Sayyaf” was Abdurajak Janjalani’s nom de guerre. The label is shorter than the mouthful: “al-Harakatul al-Islammiyah.”
“Basilan residents find it difficult to distinguish ‘Abu Sayyaf,’ MNLF, and the ‘Lost Command’ from one another,” journalist Carolyn Arguillas wrote earlier. “Members are apparently like chameleons …‘The other day, this person was MNLF Lost Command. Yesterday he was MNLF regular. Today he is Abu Sayyaf.”
“Look beyond labels and shape policies to cope with covert networks,” the analysis urges. “Today’s pattern will have changed by tomorrow.” The only constant is loot from crime— where rebels, elected officials, police and military personnel bicker over shares.
The review study may help retool government’s efforts to ferret al-Qaida and other terrorists, who burrow into “dark networks.” The human cost of protracted strife, however, is staggering
Life expectancy in Sulu and Tawi-Tawi (55 years ) is a generation shorter than in La Union (74). Seven out of 10 rebels drink from contaminated wells. And eight out of their ten kids never get high school diplomas. “To call things by their right names is the beginning of wisdom.”