Friday, June 20, 2008 Professor Dinampo: AFP not holding me against my will By Bong Garcia
PEACE advocate and Mindanao State University Professor Octavio Dinampo clarified Thursday that he is not being held against his will by the military authorities in Zamboanga City.
Dinampo issued the clarification after his family members and fellow peace advocates did not see him the whole day of Wednesday despite his release from the Abu Sayyaf captors in Sulu.
They were just informed that Dinampo is still under debriefing at Camp Don Basilio Navarro, which houses the military's Western Mindanao Command headquarters in this city.
Dinampo, along with ABS-CBN senior reporter Ces Oreņa-Drilon and cameraman Jimmy Encarnacion, was freed shortly before midnight of Tuesday.
Drilon's assistant cameraman Angelo Valderama was freed earlier.
"I believed this (debriefing) is the usual procedure undertaken in cases like this (kidnapping) and I would like to assure the media and the public that they (military) did not harm me and they did not even touch my fingers," Dinampo said.
He added: "I would like to correct the impression that they (military) are not releasing me because of anything else."
Shortly before noontime Thursday, Dinampo, his family members and Peace Advocate Zamboanga head Fr. Angel Calvo were seen leaving Camp Don Basilio Navarro after completing the debriefing process.
Dinampo refused to categorically say, when presented to the media, that they were betrayed by "somebody" as the reason that they ended up kidnapped victims, as what Drilon revealed in a press conference Wednesday.
"I believe nothing went wrong except that we are that naīve to trust our fellow human being," Dinampo said.
Dinampo admitted that although he was not tied and harmed while in captivity, "I was threatened by pointing a gun at me."
"I was praying with them (kidnappers). I'm not praying because I am afraid of these people (kidnappers), I am praying because I'm performing my obligation to God," he added.
