Arlyn De La Cruz Released

April 29, 2002

Cable television reporter Arlyn de la Cruz was released by her captors last April 27 (Saturday) in Jolo, Southern Philippines, reported Metro Manila newspapers.

De la Cruz, a reporter for Manila’s Net 25 and a contributor to the Philippine Daily Inquirer, had gone missing for almost four months since she was abducted last January 19 by former Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) guerillas now with the Armed Forces of the Philippines (“integrees”).

According to newspaper reports, de la Cruz was released in Sulu, Southern Philippines just before dawn with the intervention of University of the Philippines professor Mashur Jundam, and Senator Loren Legarda, a former television broadcaster.

Senator Legarda, through Jundam, had been negotiating with de la Cruz’s captors as early as February 3. Metro Manila newspapers reported April 30 that an Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) report said that P2-million in ransom money was paid for her release. The Senator and de la Cruz denied the claim.

De la Cruz said the group which had taken her hostage thought she had brought ransom money for the release of the remaining three hostages of the Abu Sayyaf Group when she was abducted. Finding no ransom money, she was transferred from one group to another until her release.

AFP officials denied that members of the military were involved in de la Cruz’s abduction, reported Manila newspapers, despite her allegations that her captors were still on active duty.

She said that she would later reveal the names of those involved in her kidnapping.

She claimed that she was in Basilan to conduct exclusive interviews with the Abu Sayyaf Group, which has been holding two Americans and one Filipino captive since May last year.

Earlier reports in the Philippine Daily Inquirer said that another senator, Noli de Castro, also a former television broadcaster, had been contacted by one of de la Cruz’s wedding sponsors about a ransom deal: P1-million down payment for the release of de la Cruz and another P10-million after the release. The amount had allegedly been reduced from the initial amount of P40 million.

Several theories have been advanced since her disappearance, including one that claimed that de la Cruz had brought with her a P50-million ransom for the three hostages.

In a February Inquirer report, soldiers in Mindanao claimed that de la Cruz had been abducted, allegedly by angry Abu Sayyaf members after she failed to pay them for interviews with the hostages. The report also said that CBS, a United States-based TV station, allegedly paid $20,000 to Net 25 for exclusive rights to footage of interviews with Martian and Gracia Burnham, the Abu Sayyaf’s last remaining American hostages.