FRONTLINE/World reporter and Southeast Asia correspondent for PRI World, Orlando de Guzman was born in the Philippines and grew up in a tribal community near the northern tip of the island of Luzon.

FRONTLINE/World sent de Guzman to the southern Philippines to report on the growing insurgency there. His journey begins in the town of Jolo, part of a chain of small islands in the southern region of Mindanao. Jolo today is 98 percent Muslim, and, as elsewhere in Mindanao, has a long history of separatist movements fighting for autonomy from the central (and mostly Roman Catholic) government in Manila. In this diary, de Guzman writes about battles as spectacle, cell-phone text messages from guerrillas and life under fire.

FIRST: Arriving in Jolo

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