WHILE President Duterte basked in the glow of his pivot to China last week, a bothersome development reminded us that making nice with Beijing will not push our other problems away.
Even as the President was winding up his four-day state visit, reports reaching Manila said suspected Abu Sayyaf pirates had abducted a South Korean captain and a Filipino crewman from a South Korean cargo ship on Thursday.
About 10 gunmen boarded the m/v Dongbang Giant using ropes from a speedboat and abducted skipper Chul Hong and Filipino crewman Glenn Alindajao off Bongao town in Tawi-Tawi province. The ship was on its way to South Korea from Australia, a military spokesman said.
Other crewmen were not seized and one managed to call his family, which reported the abduction to authorities, Tan said.
It was not the first of such attacks by the brutal bandit group that has made kidnapping foreigners and locals in exchange for huge ransoms a thriving backyard industry, and that has instilled fear by beheading hostages whose families do not pay.
Naval patrols off Tawi-Tawi and nearby Sulu, where Abu Sayyaf bandits take most of their kidnapping victims, have been strengthened in recent months due to a spate of abductions at sea that have ensnared crew members from Malaysia and Indonesia, but the expanse of water that must be patrolled is vast.
Back in August, the President said he wanted the Abu Sayyaf neutralized swiftly as part of his campaign to prioritize peace and order. He also said that if he unleashed the firepower of the Armed Forces and really went after them, they could finish the Abu Sayyaf in one week, down to the last man.
A massive military operation launched in the same month in Sulu and Basilan, where the Abu Sayyaf thrives, has taken its toll on both sides, including the one-day loss of 15 soldiers on Aug. 29, in Patikul, Sulu.
In September, in what appeared to be a retaliatory attack, terrorists bombed a busy night market in the President’s own hometown of Davao City, killing 14 people and wounding more than 60 others.
Promising a day of reckoning, Duterte sent 7,000 troops to Sulu to battle the bandits.
In hindsight, a month and a half after the boast was made, the President’s suggestion that the bandits could be wiped out in a week, down to the last man, has proved to be a bit too optimistic.
In his first few months in office, President Duterte has shown that he is not afraid of taking on a superpower like the United States, or even established institutions such as the Catholic Church and the United Nations. It is ironic then that in his own backyard, a band of sadistic bandits continues to mock him with impunity.
