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Orlando de Guzman and crew at the beginning of a 14-hour hike to Camp
Abubakar. |
It is pointless to ask a guerilla how long it will take to
get from point A to point B. They'll never tell you the truth,
and if they give you an estimate, say three hours, multiply
it by four. So 12 hours, give or take. We set off mid-morning,
and the sun is already burning my skin. It is difficult to imagine
how much hotter it will get. Soon, the evenly spaced coconut
groves thin out, giving way to grassland and, finally, to thick
jungle. A heavily armed unit of the MILF greets us further up
the mountain. They wear ski masks and bandanas to cover their
faces from our cameras. They carry homemade rocket-propelled
grenades. But, most interesting, almost all of them have standard
American-made M-16 rifles, each one engraved "Property of the
U.S. Government."
Orlando de Guzman and crew accompanied
by heavy armed MILF fighters, en route to Camp Abubakar.
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The MILF says it buys its weapons and bullets from members
of the Philippine military who run arms deals on the side. The
Philippine military gets most of its weaponry from the United
States. After September 11, 2001, the United States promised $100
million in military aid to the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
"Whenever there's a gun battle between us," an MILF cadre would
later tell me, "the soldiers see money, and we see new bullets.
"Here's how it works: A neutral emissary will show up to deliver
the cash, and the [Philippine soldiers] will give him the bullets.
Crates of bullets. If anyone asks the soldiers where the bullets
have gone, they say it was a heated gun battle, and they used
up everything. The bullets sell for 25 pesos [50 cents] apiece.
Sell a hundred of those and you've got a sack of rice to feed
your family."
Orlando de Guzman stops to drink water from a stream. |
These stories keep my mind off the grueling walk for a while,
as do the giant ferns that grew as large as trees. By sundown
we'd made it to our halfway point, where we'd planned to spend
the night. But the camp site is in too much of a clearing and
provided no cover. We were told that it wasn't safe. Helicopter
gunships had attacked this very spot. So we carried on, walking
-- stumbling -- through the jungle in this moonless evening. The
military's nightly barrage of artillery fire echoed across mountain.
I was told not to worry. The shells were landing a long way from
us. By midnight we finally reached an empty concrete house. We
crashed out in our hammocks, too tired to eat. At 2 in the morning,
we were awakened for a meal of sardines and rice.
The morning light makes me realize that the house we'd slept
in is actually a bunker. It is made of 1-foot-thick reinforced
concrete, strong enough to withstand artillery fire. This structure,
it turned out, was once the home of the MILF's chairman, Hashim
Salamat. We were not allowed to meet Salamat. No one has since
2000, the year Camp Abubakar was overrun and Salamat made a
hasty getaway from this very house. His location is known only
by a handful of trusted MILF officers. But we were given unprecedented
access to the MILF's field commanders and top political leaders.
NEXT: With the Commander
PREVIOUS: Into Guerrilla Territory
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