April 16, 2000, Philippine Daily Inquirer, Erap to Abu: We'll teach you a lesson, by Donna S. Cueto and Juliet L. Javellana,

''THEY'RE asking the impossible.'' President Estrada and other officials yesterday dismissed as ''preposterous'' a demand of the Abu Sayyaf that the World Trade Center bomber be freed from a US prison in exchange for 30 hostages in a mountain camp in Basilan.

After teeing off at the 2nd Erap Cup at the Tagaytay Midlands, the President said the Abu Sayyaf rebels "may be out of their minds" to actually demand the release of Arab terrorist Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind behind the 1993 bombing, and two other Muslim militants jailed in the United States.

"We will not compromise . . . We'll teach them a lesson," Mr. Estrada promised, as nearly 900 kilometers away, an Abu Sayyaf spokesman said the rebels would wait for the President's response before making their next move.

"The government already knows what will happen to the victims if our demands are not met," said the spokesman, Abu Ahmad Salayyudin. He also made a new demand, saying a large wooden cross erected on a Basilan mountain in the 1970s should be taken down.

But Mr. Estrada would brook no threat from the Muslim extremists. "I'm warning them. They'll be met with the full force of the law and the full force of the military. We will not tolerate all these terroristic and criminal acts," he said.

He also expressed confidence that government forces would "surely win the fight" against the Abu Sayyaf and eventually secure the release of the 30 (not 29 as earlier reported) who were abducted with 23 others last month in Basilan.

"Well, hopefully in a short time, we will be able to solve" the hostage crisis, the President said, without elaborating. "It's just a matter of time. It's just a matter of time," he said, when first queried about the situation.

In Basilan, after securing the release of two schoolgirl hostages on Thursday, actor and Muslim convert Robin Padilla met relatives of the remaining hostages yesterday. "I'm sorry, I was not able to free all," he told the relatives waiting at a Catholic center in Isabela. "I will return, let us pray."

In the morning, Padilla met with Abdul Mijal, leader of the vigilante group that is holding nine relatives of Abu Sayyaf leader Khaddafy Janjalani. Mijal had given the Abu Sayyaf until yesterday to release the 30 hostages before killing the nine. As of presstime, he had not made good his threat. The Crisis Management Committee on Friday sent a letter to Mijal asking to extend the April 15 deadline.

Giving in

The government gave in to a demand to send Padilla to negotiate after the rebels threatened to behead all their male captives. The Abu Sayyaf also demanded 200 sacks of rice. After the government fulfilled that demand as well, the rebels came up with the list of new demands, including the release of Yousef, a certain Abu Haider, who they said was jailed in California, and Sheik Abdurahman Omar.

Sen. Rodolfo Biazon said the Abu Sayyaf gained an upper hand when the government yielded to the first demands and "established a bad precedent." By Sheik Omar, the rebels apparently meant Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, a Muslim cleric jailed for conspiring to bomb sites in New York City.

Ramzi Yousef is serving a life sentence plus 240 years for the World Trade Center bombing. He was reportedly in Manila in 1995 in connection with a failed plot to assassinate the Pope. He was arrested in Pakistan a year later, but is believed to have been in contact with the Abu Sayyaf while in the Philippines. Haidal is reportedly one of the teachers of Abu Sayyaf leader Khaddafy Janjalani, although it is unclear why he is in prison.

Negotiating Christianity

In a letter to President Estrada sent Friday, Janjalani also demanded the release of two Abu Sayyaf members jailed in Mindanao--Hadjirul Ampul, a suspect in the bombing of police headquarters in Basilan, and Ustadz Patta, a suspected kidnapper detained in Zamboanga City.

The rebels further demanded the removal of Christian crosses and foreign fishing vessels in Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi, and a presidential order directing the education department to "pass laws allowing Muslim students to practice their religious rights and obligations."

The Abu Sayyaf spokesman reportedly told a provincial radio station Friday that the last demand meant that Muslim female students should be required to wear traditional Muslim attire, and be forbidden from attending Christmas parties and wearing shorts during sporting events. The rebels, according to wire reports, also asked to meet with the Italian ambassador, because "Christianity came from Europe" and they wanted to "settle" the issue once and for all.

Rx for terrorism

Defense Secretary Orlando Mercado, Biazon and new Senate President Franklin Drilon agreed with the President that the demands were impossible to meet. "What kind of a demand is this?" Mercado asked. "We can't even consider it." "This is out of this world. It should be rejected outright," Drilon said. "That is the prescription for terrorism--if you give in to these kind of demands."

"These are not only impossible demands but illogical as well," Mercado said, remarking that the Philippines could not compel foreign countries to release prisoners. He voiced the hope that the demands were just part of the "usual bargaining process" and that the Muslim extremists would eventually formulate more realistic demands.

Mercado said Cabinet members dealing with security issues would discuss the demands but that negotiations would be left to the Crisis Management Committee in the south.

Even Moro leaders

Even other Moro leaders in Mindanao described the demands as unrealistic. Prof. Datu Amisulin Jumaani, secretary general of the Ulama League of the Philippines in Western Mindanao, said they were "so detached from reality." He said the only one that was reasonable was the demand regarding Muslim students.

And Biazon, chair of the Senate committee on national defense and security, said President Estrada would have no option but to reject the "preposterous and ridiculous" demands. The former Armed Forces chief of staff said that after exhausting all "peaceful alternatives," the government should begin to consider the "military option" to quash the extremist group.

"I don't think the President has any option (but to reject the demands). How can he give in when the international component is not even within his control?" asked Biazon, who had been urging the government to "neutralize" the Abu Sayyaf. He said that the dismantling of crosses and crucifixes in the southern provinces "should not even be discussed."

'So kill them'

Biazon said the group's demands indicated that the rebels would do anything to "prolong the hostage situation" and get international exposure. "They want to internationalize the issue by asking for the release of the international terrorist responsible for the World Trade Center bombing and so you can expect them to prolong the issue to gain international media mileage," Biazon said in a phone interview with the INQUIRER.

But he also raised the possibility "that they have connections with international terrorist groups, meaning we're not only dealing here with local terrorists, we may be dealing with something else."

Before the demands were made known, Biazon had proposed drastic measures in dealing with the rebels. "The government must make a move to neutralize this group. If in order to neutralize them you have to kill them, so be it," he said Thursday.

Biazon said the government's policy of negotiating in hostage crises had failed to solve the rebellion in Mindanao. "The government must study a change in tack. It should not rest in pursuing the Abu Sayyaf until it is demolished, destroyed and neutralized," he said. --With reports from Philip Tubeza; Julie Alipala-Inot, Jonathan F. Ma and Jowel F. Canuday, PDI Mindanao Bureau; AP, AFP