The Philippines, a country with millions of nationals working overseas and with a domestic Islamic insurgency of its own, has a lot to lose from acceding to terrorist blackmail. That it finally did so yesterday, by agreeing to pull its troops out of Iraq in hopes of saving the life of a Filipino hostage, may trouble the life of that nation for years to come.
There's no gainsaying that this must have been a difficult decision for President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. On the one hand she had the very real life of one man, an impoverished truck driver with a wife and eight children, whom the kidnappers threatened to behead. On the other, the country's international reputation was at stake.
But now that the Philippines is known as an appeaser, it might as well be open season on Filipinos working overseas. Mrs. Arroyo must also explain herself to friendly nations, starting with the U.S., that had thought they'd earned the right to expect solidarity from Manila. The Philippines' longstanding ally is giving Mrs. Arroyo's government help in its struggle against Islamic separatists who want to turn southern Philippine islands into a Muslim sultanate that would include, in part or in whole, Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei.
The kidnapping of Angelo de la Cruz in Iraq was not unrelated to this Philippine insurgency. The Mindanao-based Moro Islamic Liberation Front and Abu Sayyaf have links to the terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah, the scourge of Southeast Asia. Our sister publication, the Far Eastern Economic Review, reports that the "MILF continues to facilitate the military training of a new generation of Indonesian militants" who are in the central command of Jemaah Islamiyah. JI is tied to al Qaeda and the Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, whose men are probably holding Mr. de la Cruz.
Mrs. Arroyo will also have to face her counterparts in Japan and South Korea, who have had hostage crises but refused to cave in. Seoul paid a high price when Kim Sun-Il, a translator, was beheaded. He too had a family, and President Roh Moo-huyn also faced demonstrators. But Mr. Roh was able to persuade Koreans that he had made a tough decision in the national interest. Bulgaria, Italy and other nations that have refused to flinch under pressure surely will view the Philippine decision with dismay.
And then there's Iraq's new government, bravely fighting Islamic fanatics trying to block freedom and democracy. What if the rest of the world had turned its back on Filipinos when they were struggling to regain their democracy not so very long ago?
