LOS ANGELES, 1 June — Barely a day after I had stepped off a plane at Los Angeles International Airport last Sunday I was confronted by the news that 20 hostages had been taken from the Dos Palmas resort in Palawan by Abu Sayyaf bandits.  The Long Beach Press-Telegram newspaper highlighted the story in their Monday edition because a southern California resident, Guillermo Sobrero, was among the three Americans taken hostage along with 17 Filipinos.
It carried an Associated Press story and picture of him, noting that Sobrero was in the process of divorcing his wife, and that she had not even known that he was in the Philippines. She told the AP that she thought he was in Las Vegas. 
The Orange County Register also carried the story, but the venerable Los Angeles Times completely missed the story probably because of early deadlines on Sunday, a day before Memorial Day.
The Times chose to ignore the story in its Tuesday editions, most likely out of embarrassment over missing it in the first place, but finally carried a follow-up story on Wednesday hidden on an inside page. I looked at the Times’ weather page and noticed that Manila is not listed in its international cities section, an oversight that is amazing considering the huge numbers of Filipinos living in southern California. 
Not surprisingly, the US government has rushed a team to Manila to help in hunting down the Abu Sayyaf kidnappers. Former senator Ernesto Maceda this week revealed that the US would once again be sharing sophisticated high-tech surveillance data with Philippine officials, something it did last year when the Abu Sayyaf kidnapped European tourists from Sipadan and later added an American hostage. Maceda said that the US spy satellite system would be helping in tracking the kidnappers, as well as intercepting their communications. 
Some Filipino senators have expressed concern over the extent of American military involvement in the hunt for the kidnappers, with Senate President Aquilino Pimentel saying it should be limited to technical support and not troops on the ground. Sen. Rodolfo Biazon said the use of US spy satellites would be OK but not surveillance flights.
I feel these concerns are exaggerated, as the Philippines needs all the help it can get in tracking down these kidnappers, who have remained as a grave threat to the country’s security and image abroad.
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The news blackout on the latest hostage crisis that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has asked the media to observe is bound to fail. I say that because in a vibrant democracy like the Philippines, where press freedom is enshrined in the constitution, how can the government legitimately suppress the flow of information? It will be an uphill battle that the government is bound to lose. 
Rather than use the term “blackout” I think the president should have used “restraint.” That I think the press could live with. The Philippine Daily Inquirer reported on Thursday that Gloria Arroyo was having cocktails with editors and publishers of tabloids at Malaca?ang Palace on Wednesday night to urge them to show restraint in their often inflammatory reporting of the news. The screaming two-inch headlines in red ink of many tabloids are the last thing any administration wants to deal with.
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One worrying aspect of the Philippine military’s response to the kidnapping was the statement of armed forces spokesman Brig. Gen. Edilberto Adan that the military would welcome the involvement of vigilante groups in Mindanao to help flush out the Abu Sayyaf bandits. When former President Fidel Ramos and Senetor Pimentel warned against using vigilante groups, presidential spokesman Rigoberto Tiglao denied that Adan had ever used the word “vigilante.” 
Mindanao has a long history of armed Christian vigilante groups attacking Muslims. Perhaps this was in reaction to being attacked by Muslim groups to begin with, but Christian Filipinos should not forget that many Muslims in Mindanao believe that their land was stolen and given to Christian migrants from Luzon and Visayas. 
Ramos has urged the use of Civilian Home Defense Forces (CHDF) since they are covered by military laws. Originally formed in the 1980s as anti-communist forces, the CHDF nevertheless have a less than sterling record in terms of human rights abuses. I don’t think any paramilitary forces should be used in hunting down the Abu Sayyaf kidnappers. I do agree that civilians should be encouraged to share information on the location of the kidnappers with the military, but that should be the extent of civilian cooperation.
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As you must have gathered by my dateline, I am no longer in Manila. In fact I have moved back to the United States for good. Don’t worry though, I will continue to write this weekly column despite being 15 time zones behind the Philippines.  I already miss the heat and hustle and bustle of Manila.
The Long Beach neighborhood where I am temporarily living is so quiet! I experienced waves of nostalgia when my host Anne-Marie Otey showed me a menu from a local Filipino restaurant called Manila Sunset.
Names of dishes that all Filipinos know so well, such as goto, bibingka, embutido, and putong puti, made me wish I were still in the Philippines. I miss my tiny studio condo in Makati, I miss walking to my local gym Shapes and Curves, and I miss watching movies at Greenbelt and Glorietta. The only comfort I have in remembering all of that is that I can return to Manila in the future if I want to. Hopefully I will!