Today is Monday, July 19, 2010 and it is now 1038PM here in San Franz, Mindanao, Philippines.
Recap: Arrived back on Mindanao for a couple of days, to take care of my obligations on the island.
This Entry: This time of year I am usually reminded of a kidnapping that took place here in 1988. I first came here about 1986, and was here on my annual leave from the army in July, 1988. Then, like now, the island was torn apart by insurgency, killing on a massive scale but as is the way of the world, when white people die it catches people's attention.
A particular case from July, 1988 will probablly always be with me but this year it is especially heavy upon my mind. I will always remember it I think because it involved a personal friend of mine, and it is especially on my mind this year because I am now 43, his age when the incident took place.
David Blair Stiffler, like me, is a Jew born in New York City. Like me he married a Filipina, though his wife Elpidia Binuya Stiffler is from Nueva Ecija on Luzon, not a southern tribal like Rizza or Jackie.
Like me, he worked union construction in New York and just like me, he had an anthropology degree (though mine is Ethno-Botany, a sub-discipline).
Though he supported Elpidia and himself with his construction work his passion was, and remins Ethnic Music. He went on to found "Ethnix" which is a well known World Music label so some reading this may have heard of the man.
He and Elpidia had arrived on the island in June and hoped to survey indigenous forms of music on the West Coast, where Moros (Muslim tribes) are dominant.
Taking a house in Marawi City on Lake Lanao, in Lanao del Sur Province they began recording local musicians, mostly gong players. Most indigenous music here relies on gongs, but there are several different types of music.
While recording Maranoan (Maranaw) tribesmen, Muslims, they were kidnapped by ex-MNLF guerillas who had just begun branching out into kidnap for ransom, now a huge business in that part of the island.
Tkane on July 30,1988 the government refused to negotiate and allowed the military free reign. Col.Resos was put in charge and a man after my own heart, he went to the media and speaking directly to the kidnappers said that unless they released the couple post haste he and his men would kidnap the family members of the kidnappers and burn their villages. He then began pounding the village holding them with 155MM Howitzers, which was stupid of course since the couple was still being held there, but that is the mindset of the AFP (Philippine military).
On August 15,1988 the howitzers scared the entire village into fleeing, leaving behind the couple who then walked to freedom, getting a fisherman to row them to a military post on Lake Lanao.
I will not go into details of their captivity, out of respect for the couple but 1 can imagine the lack of respect paid to them, and the horrors suffered.
Luckily the eastern half of the island, my half, isn't rife with kidnapping. The last case was the 6 year old daughter of a local businessman who then promptly ransomed her getting her home a week later.
Before that, around Xmas, Ondoy Perez, a Manobo tribesman who lives next to our cattle farm in Prosperidad, the provincial capitol, took an entire school hostage for 4 days when charged with killing an entire family, after 1 of their members killed 3 of his kinsmen.
Interestingly, Ondoy was a soldier in one of the indigenous paramilitaries I have been posting about.
In the end he got his charges dropped which of course just perpetuates such acts knowing that IF you take hostages you will avoid a pressing situation.
Recap: Arrived back on Mindanao for a couple of days, to take care of my obligations on the island.
This Entry: This time of year I am usually reminded of a kidnapping that took place here in 1988. I first came here about 1986, and was here on my annual leave from the army in July, 1988. Then, like now, the island was torn apart by insurgency, killing on a massive scale but as is the way of the world, when white people die it catches people's attention.
A particular case from July, 1988 will probablly always be with me but this year it is especially heavy upon my mind. I will always remember it I think because it involved a personal friend of mine, and it is especially on my mind this year because I am now 43, his age when the incident took place.
David Blair Stiffler, like me, is a Jew born in New York City. Like me he married a Filipina, though his wife Elpidia Binuya Stiffler is from Nueva Ecija on Luzon, not a southern tribal like Rizza or Jackie.
Like me, he worked union construction in New York and just like me, he had an anthropology degree (though mine is Ethno-Botany, a sub-discipline).
Though he supported Elpidia and himself with his construction work his passion was, and remins Ethnic Music. He went on to found "Ethnix" which is a well known World Music label so some reading this may have heard of the man.
He and Elpidia had arrived on the island in June and hoped to survey indigenous forms of music on the West Coast, where Moros (Muslim tribes) are dominant.
Taking a house in Marawi City on Lake Lanao, in Lanao del Sur Province they began recording local musicians, mostly gong players. Most indigenous music here relies on gongs, but there are several different types of music.
While recording Maranoan (Maranaw) tribesmen, Muslims, they were kidnapped by ex-MNLF guerillas who had just begun branching out into kidnap for ransom, now a huge business in that part of the island.
Tkane on July 30,1988 the government refused to negotiate and allowed the military free reign. Col.Resos was put in charge and a man after my own heart, he went to the media and speaking directly to the kidnappers said that unless they released the couple post haste he and his men would kidnap the family members of the kidnappers and burn their villages. He then began pounding the village holding them with 155MM Howitzers, which was stupid of course since the couple was still being held there, but that is the mindset of the AFP (Philippine military).
On August 15,1988 the howitzers scared the entire village into fleeing, leaving behind the couple who then walked to freedom, getting a fisherman to row them to a military post on Lake Lanao.
I will not go into details of their captivity, out of respect for the couple but 1 can imagine the lack of respect paid to them, and the horrors suffered.
Luckily the eastern half of the island, my half, isn't rife with kidnapping. The last case was the 6 year old daughter of a local businessman who then promptly ransomed her getting her home a week later.
Before that, around Xmas, Ondoy Perez, a Manobo tribesman who lives next to our cattle farm in Prosperidad, the provincial capitol, took an entire school hostage for 4 days when charged with killing an entire family, after 1 of their members killed 3 of his kinsmen.
Interestingly, Ondoy was a soldier in one of the indigenous paramilitaries I have been posting about.
In the end he got his charges dropped which of course just perpetuates such acts knowing that IF you take hostages you will avoid a pressing situation.