A kidnapped Philippine television reporter, whose guides were beheaded as she tried to contact Muslim guerrillas linked to al-Qaeda, was freed yesterday after nearly 100 days in captivity.
"If you only knew what I went through, you would say this is a miracle, by the grace of God ... God did not desert me," Arlyn de la Cruz told reporters, bursting into tears and burying her face in her hands after regaining freedom.
"I know many of you thought I was already dead."
PHOTO: AP
De la Cruz was released just before dawn on the southern island of Jolo and taken to Zamboanga, from where she was flown to Manila.
Stepping off a private plane at Manila airport, she again broke down after seeing her mother and other family members.
"I did not expect I will be able to come back home today," she said. "I couldn't believe it."
De la Cruz had been missing since Jan. 19. She said she was traveling in the interior hills of Jolo, 960km south of Manila, when she was taken hostage the next day by Muslim gunmen who beheaded her two guides.
She was in the area trying to interview Khadafy Janjalani, leader of Abu Sayyaf guerrillas, who have been holding a US missionary couple hostage on the nearby island of Basilan for 11 months. De la Cruz was personally acquainted with Janjalani, whom she had interviewed several times before.
The US has linked the Abu Sayyaf to Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network.
De la Cruz said the gunmen who abducted her were not Abu Sayyaf members but described them as a group of former rebels who had joined the military after signing a peace deal, civilians who had taken up arms and criminals.
She said the gang which seized her apparently thought she was a courier carrying ransom money for the release of US missionaries Martin and Gracia Burnham.
"The first thing they asked was `Where is the money?' They thought I was carrying the ransom but all they got from me was 2,000 pesos (US$39)," de la Cruz said.
"There was a time when they were very harsh. I just want to forget it," she said when asked about her captivity and declined to give details.
No ransom was paid and the gunmen released her after intervention by Senator Loren Legarda, herself a former television presenter, de la Cruz said.
"I have been covering [the region] for 12 years, I became over-confident," de la Cruz said. "I will not go there any more."
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