Rebels of Mindanao (16 page)

“You won't need documents as far as I'm concerned. I just want to know if I can count you in with STAGCOM. “STAGCOM” sounded official and was short, easy to say, and seemed to reflect the masculinity of the Otazas.

“Mr. Thornton, we have already told you we're here, and so are our families. You are with our family. What more do you want?” Vicente's acquiescence seemed to seal the deal as no objections were heard from the other brothers.

“Your word is enough for me.” Thornton realized that he should not talk more about the mission during the wedding celebration, now winding down. Who better and what greater commitment could he find? He turned the meeting over to Elaiza and Pedro, who laid out the assignments and explained that each team member could come away from the mission with some American cash. More than the money, and more than any projected new wealth, their blood relationship cemented loyalty, for the duration of the mission at least. Thornton considered his STAGCOM team now complete.

Pedro continued to talk with his brothers after Thornton finished. Pedro always talked, whether he had something to say or not. Elaiza translated for Thornton. A lot of what Pedro told his brothers was not logical to Thornton's way of thinking, or even correct, but he kept talking, and his musical chatter made his brothers and the entourage of family comfortable. They would have to relate the import of the meeting to make everyone back home comfortable with the pending absence of their men. Thornton was glad Pedro had brought his brothers in from Agusan. He instinctively liked and respected them, and all together the five Otaza brothers appeared to be a gang of potentially mean guys. Judging by the lengths and widths of scars here and there, the four younger brothers had as much experience with the knife as Pedro, and Thornton wanted them on his side.

Silence settled in for a few minutes as the fire turned to bright orange coals. Pedro suddenly asked, “Just who are we looking for, and why?”

Thornton gave some of the background and related it to their Augusan homeland, “You know about the Al Qaeda and their faction that oppresses you in Agusan, the New Peoples Army.”

“Yes, of course, the bastards tax anything that moves on the road, and our government looks away.” Reymundo had some personal experience with the NPA when he took rice to the markets in town to sell. Illegal checkpoints stopped him to collect taxes for the support of NPA combat troops in the field.

Sitting cross-legged and barefoot, more a rice farmer than a mercenary, Eduardo had a similar view. “Yes, of course, we know about them, but we also know not to talk about them in our village. The NPA in town share information with our neighbors and some of the impatient soldiers are always looking for a rich Chinese merchant to kidnap for ransom. We don't like them, but they also keep foreigners out. That is good.”

Thornton finally told them what the brothers needed to know: “We have only one man we must eliminate to get our rewards. The government forces can do their own work without us. Can you kill just one man, a foreigner wandering around in Mindanao with two big sacks of money?”

The Otazas' smirks and silence were their obvious answers.

Starke took another slug of brandy from the bottle and gave it to Pedro to pass around, saying sleepily, “I think I'll just stay here,” and curled up on the beach to go to sleep by the dying fire.

Thornton and Elaiza had their team.

That night, Elaiza went up to Thornton's second floor suite with him. They talked quietly for a while about the day's events, and she watched him sip a glass of Australian red wine, listening to classical music and Moser's late night program on the radio. She was tired and fell asleep in her chair on the balcony. Thornton lifted her, and a lingering aroma of her perfume,
Innocent Angel
, and natural perspiration surrounded her; he weighed her firmness as she stirred slightly in his arms, placed her in his bed, and covered her with a thin sheet. He returned to the balcony and spent the night sleeping uncomfortably in the chair.

Thornton awoke early. A horizontal strip of early morning purple separated the new day from the smooth, black water of the Gulf of Davao and outlined the mango tree, hinting of its history of torment. Preoccupied with thoughts about doing his job for Hargens, he sat alone on the balcony until Elaiza woke and joined him, only a little bit embarrassed that she had spent the night in his bed.

From the balcony on that pleasant morning, as the sun rose, Thornton and Elaiza watched the somber old farmer, head bent over, walk across the field with his axe and cut down his mango tree. He had finally given up.

Elaiza said quietly, “The story of my island.

T
he third Thursday of August is the first day of Kadayawan, the festival giving thanks to all the Gods for the crops of flowers and fruits. The harvest is always good in Mindanao, a patchwork of mango and banana plantations crowned with pink and white waling-waling orchids. The word
Kadayawan
was created for the annual occasion, a composite of the Visayan words
dayaw
and
madayaw
, implying excellent harvest and good fortune, and the festival showcases its essence in sound and color.

Long before the formal start of the Kadayawan ceremonies, young boys carrying torches pranced among the camps and the cooking fires of the participants. They were up before dawn, unable to sleep any longer with all the noise and excitement of the final preparations. The boys were already in parade dress, blue and red pants resembling pajama bottoms, loosely fit at the waist and tight from thigh to ankle, embroidered with intricate designs, and short-sleeved shirts in contrasting colors open in the front exposing bead and shell necklaces jangling on
their youthful, hairless chests. Just after dawn, dancers and marchers from neighboring towns and villages came out of their lean-tos erected in bare spots against the hollow block wall on the football field where the parade would assemble.

As the early rays of the sun broke through the thin, low-lying layers of charcoal smoke, the female dancers began to put on their costumes. Some of the women wore painted masks incorporating long black and white feathers extending upward in spirals, meant to resemble the famous Philippine Eagle, Kabayan, possibly the last of an almost extinct species and a vivid symbol of the free spirit of Mindanao. Young girls in long, bright red and black skirts with interwoven golden yellow strands and slit up both sides showed long trim legs as they moved forward. In a loose order of procession, they joined the short, skinny negritos, the aborigines with black skin and reddish, kinky hair who inhabited the southwestern part of the island. The younger children carried woven grass baskets filled with dwarf vegetables and unfurled bright paper strip banners, tugged along by a humid breeze.

The vivid colors and happy sounds of the assemblage contrasted with drab garbage stacked opposite the wire mesh fence, blocking the football field from the road where street children begged for a few pesos from the early onlookers. A pile of plastic and moist cardboard burned in smoking, flameless combustion, drifting toxic hydrocarbon fumes into the assembly area. While the dancers were doing their pre-dawn primping, the Abu Sayaf advance team arrived in downtown Davao City, inconspicuously traveling by intercity bus. For his role, Mahir was the best dressed among them, wearing conservative but expensive street clothing. He had shaved his full beard, keeping only a trim moustache. He walked around the plaza and began chatting with the city employees on site. For a thousand-peso tip, the parade official at the gate let him register a float as the official entry of the European Importers Union—a phony organization, but the application form looked genuine enough to the guard, and he could use the money. Mahir spoke English rather than the local language and looked like a distinguished gentleman to the official.

Opposite the shoeshine stand on the wide boulevard, two early birds, Thornton and Elaiza, ordered cappuccinos and casaba cake at the
Blu Gre
coffee shop. Elaiza read from the paper, “Mayor Fuentes is concerned
about security for the parade; he's issued another alert and cancelled weekend leave for the police.”

“Good. And they're patrolling already, look.” Thornton pointed to a tough-looking senior policeman, who gently scooped up in one arm a young boy running into the street where he was not permitted and then set him gently back down on the sidewalk. The lad continued his happy tour of the parade route and the officer returned to issuing gruff instructions to his subordinates.

“And this is new.” Elaiza continued to read, “The Office of the President is convinced that the ‘Oakwood Incident,' that attempted coup by disgruntled army officers, was not terrorist sponsored, unlike the threatened bombing attacks in the southern islands which the Abu Sayaf are instigating.”

Thornton agreed. “It's not likely that those whining young lieutenants from Manila are behind the attacks here,” he said. “They have no support base in Mindanao.”

“You sound so superior.”

“Would you rather have me be inferior? I don't think I'm so superior, but if someone tells me that two plus two equals five, I'm not simply going to smile sweetly and say, ‘Oh, that's nice.'” Thornton couldn't be quiet when Elaiza played the culture card, even when he knew it would start an argument.

He continued: “Those junior officers don't realize the harm they're causing to their own country, especially to the workers and professionals who pay for their educations at military academies and their government salaries and pensions until they die. What juveniles. And what was the best they could do in their uprising? They took over a hotel inside a shopping mall. They can't think any bigger: incompetence even in protest.”

“Yes, that was the Oakwood Hotel, or what some call the Magdalo Incident.” Elaiza still wore a frown.

“I guess they were protesting the corruption of their generals. Maybe they would rather report to some Muslim mullah.” To Elaiza, Thornton still sounded as though he was preaching to a lower caste. She radiated silence.

“There are so many wandering zealots in the country, with different
group names. And each local tribe also has its own charismatic mini chief who wants more. That's about as far as they have thought this through.” Thornton was rambling mostly to himself.

Elaiza didn't disagree, but didn't like his attitude. She wanted to make him think. “But what if they ever unite? All those tribes and factions?”

“Add in the mix of religious cults, and you have a civil war in the Philippines that Manila can't win,” Thornton concluded.

“But the trouble now is from outsiders.”

“Yes, Elaiza, but only until they become insiders, and get some firepower. What is an outsider, anyway, someone from another country? Another village? A different church?”

“If they get the firepower, you can expect a war. Look at this article, it's official, the president's team negotiating with the communists admits that peace talks have broken down.” Elaiza read as they finished their coffees and the street in front of them began to fill with people waiting for the parade to start. Gradually her frown relaxed into a mere dimple on her forehead.

Kadayawan was the optimum opportunity for Lateef and Mahir to get into Davao undiscovered and to blow up a big part of it—or at least to hit some very significant targets. The Abu Sayaf could make a real statement. It wouldn't be just blowing up some poor people's bus stop this time or bombing an almost empty fishing wharf and killing a few innocent young girls. All Mindanao would hear about it. By the time Lateef had arrived with the explosive-laden truck, Mahir had baskets of flowers and a dozen boys recruited to insert and arrange the fresh orchids. The awkward vehicle could not have been moved the long distance from the resort into town for the parade in its final form, and its sponsors were not trying to win any award, but the float needed to appear genuine for the parade. The crew got busy, and their activity blended into the chaos around them.

Now Lateef slipped the rusty vehicle, reconfigured into a flower-covered float, into the metro area, unchallenged by the armed men at the Task Force Davao check points who waved them through with holiday smiles, even despite Mayor Fuentes' alert of the continuing terrorist threat. It had been easy to conceal the three tons of dynamite in the stolen flatbed truck, now containing an underpinning of internal supports
of wood 2” by 4”s. Over the framework, orchids and fresh fruit were tied into a curved surface of chicken wire mesh, shaped into a towering purple peacock and crowned with thousands of
waling-waling
, the most beautiful and famous of the Mindanao orchids. The float slipped onto the football field and into the place Mahir had staked out earlier.

When they had a chance to talk alone, Mahir asked Lateef, “Any problems moving in?”

“No. Little curiosity was shown. Everyone is involved in their own work, and they'll stay that way, Enshallah.”

“This day will start the revolution.”

“You cannot have a revolution without the people. Why do you think all these people will join up with us?”

“Look how many men in the street you see wearing Che Guevara tee shirts. They will join.”

“These poor people have nothing to lose. They will all join us when they know they're fighting Zionism and Yankeeism.” Lateef did not seem concerned that he was soon to kill many of his countrymen indiscriminately.

Mahir answered, “You make good sense to me. The struggle is not just about autonomy here. We must have true Islamic republics everywhere, under the laws of the Koran.”

“Yes,” Lateef agreed. “We must do what we will do today not only as the Abu Sayaf of Mindanao, although we will profit greatly ourselves, but also for the children of the hopeless. We will decide what they need, and we will provide for them.”

Mahir and Lateef were ready.