The full horror of what has been happening on the tropical island of Basilan was in full view yesterday morning in the Cathedral Church of the little capital, Isabela. Beneath the words above the altar, "I endured fire for Your sake, my God", horrified mourners crowded round two brown-painted coffins containing the remains of teachers Dante Urban and Nelson Enriquez. The bodies had no heads. The two men were decapitated on April 19th by the Islamic group known as Abu Sayyaf, after being held hostage with 35 others from March 20th. Their torsos had just been found.
Basilan is the birthplace and main base of Abu Sayyaf, which is holding eight hostages, two teachers and six schoolchildren here, and 21 mostly foreign tourists on the neighbouring island of Jolo. The tree-clad island is considered such a dangerous place that visitors are given a police escort. I was accompanied by Rogel and Lungay, off-duty members of the local vice squad, on the 6.30 a.m. hydrofoil from Zamboanga on neighbouring Mindanao.
Among the passengers was Mr Hader Giang, press officer for Basilan's governor, who sleeps in Zamboanga because his life has been threatened by Abu Sayyaf. "They want my head, because I criticised them," he said as Boyzone music blasted through the ferry loudspeakers.
The scene was idyllic as we passed through mangrove glades, and glided across silky blue water towards waterside houses on stilts before docking at the harbour. But the narrow streets of Isabela were bristling with soldiers and armed police. The Font Cafe, where we had breakfast and which specialises in grilled barracuda and octopus, had a sign saying "Weapons strictly prohibited".
Basilan's population of 260,000 supports several armed groups, including the 200-strong Abu Sayyaf and the (currently inactive) 500-member Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) - not to mention bandit gangs, pirates, smugglers and several private armies maintained by the governor and mayors. Nine people were killed last year in a shoot-out between the armies of the mayor and vice-mayor of Sumisp town over a bounced cheque that the mayor had written to his deputy.
Bombs are sometimes thrown at the police station, the cathedral and video halls showing soft porn, which offends Islamic principles. But people fear most the kidnappings, mostly for ransom, which have been commonplace here since the campaign for an Islamic state in the southern Philippines gathered pace in the early 1990s.
Father Cirilo Nacorda was held by Abu Sayyaf rebels for 61 days in 1994. He knows what the hostages on Jolo are going through. "I experienced what they are experiencing now," he said as the coffins were closed. "The worst was not just the fear of being killed but the dread of being beheaded. They often put a gun barrel to my head. I was so frightened I could not urinate."
The main aim of Abu Sayyaf, Father Cirilo believes, is to drive out the Christians who form a third of the population, and he condemned Muslim leaders for their silence. This accusation was strongly denied by Mr Hodafinuhmin Mujahid, leader of the Basilan Muslims and supporter of an Islamic state. "We are shouting that it is un-Islamic to kidnap innocent people," he told me later. "We condemn the kidnappers at Friday prayers."
Many Muslims as well as Christians were outraged by the barbarity of Abu Sayyaf, whose members killed a priest and three other teachers on May 2nd as the military moved in and freed 27 hostages, mostly children. Several are traumatised and afraid to return to their village. They are being looked after at a church centre beside the bishop's house, where a bullet-riddled jeep in which five parish workers were killed in an ambush a year ago has been decked with flowers and made into a "Memorial for Peace".
Teachers have been getting the children to draw pictures of their experience. Asked what she hoped for most in captivity, a little girl replied: "We lost hope". Nine-year-old Nova Verallo cried for days and has now lapsed into silence. She was with her mother yesterday as she joined petitioners at the Moorish-style Capitol building near the cathedral to seek help from the governor, Mr Wahab Akbar, in finding a job and a place to live.
Mr Akbar, who greeted me in white T-shirt, braces and jeans, and chain-smoked Marlboros through a gold cigarette-holder, was a former fighter with the mainstream Moro National Liberation Force (MNLF) which accepted limited autonomy in 1996. When aged only 11, he joined his father in the jungle after they were driven off their ancestral land by a logging company. His militant career ended when he was elected governor two years ago. His former MNLF rebels form a 100-strong private army, some of whom lounge round the mahogany and flame trees outside, cradling ferocious-looking M203 automatics.
Mr Akbar, who packs a 45-calibre pistol and lives for security with his three wives and two children in the Capitol, has put a price of $750 on the head of every adult member of Abu Sayyaf. "They are mostly teenagers," he said. "Some are 11-13 years old. They do not understand what they are doing."
At the Philippine army base 8 km from Isabela along a muddy road through dense coffee, black pepper and rubber plantations - where the biggest building was the "Rooster Arena" for cock fighting - Brig-Gen Golicerio Sua compared the military's fight to "neutralise" Abu Sayyaf on Basilan with the war in Vietnam. The jungle terrain provides enough cover to allow the kidnappers, who have machines guns and mortars, to operate over a quarter of the island, he said. Some of the governor's former rebels were helping as guides.
For Abu Sayyaf, Basilan is home territory. The militant group was founded in Isabela almost 10 years ago by Abubakar Janjalani, who was killed by soldiers in 1998 and has been succeeded by his brother, Khaddafi.
In a twist to the kidnap saga, seven members of the Janjalani family are being held hostage in a secluded part of Basilan by Muslim "vigilantes" at the behest of the furious family of a Muslim girl caught up in the kidnapping of schoolchildren. Nobody is trying to free those hostages.
Does this mean he approved of the revenge kidnapping, I asked the governor. "No comment," he said, adding with a grin: "It is hard for me to tell a lie."