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PHILIPPINES Freed Father Sinnott wants to resume ministry
12-11-2009
PASAY CITY, Philippines (UCAN) -- Irish Columban Father Michael Sinnott hopes to resume his ministry after being released by kidnappers who had held him for a month.
The priest said he was kept in "very primitive" conditions in two areas, one a swampy area "with mud all around us." He said he could not move about and was forced to sit in a hammock all day with his guard.
He had also been kept in the jungle and at one point was forced to march for around eight hours through the mountains.
Father Sinnott said he did not think anyone would want to kidnap him again, as he had slowed his captors down.
"I'm an old man, and I had a hard time walking," the priest said, laughing.
He said he would like to continue working in Pagadian diocese where he has served most of his 42 years in the Philippines.
Father Sinnott was released before dawn on Nov. 12 in Zamboanga City, 850 kilometers southeast of Manila. He was later flown to Pasay City, south of Manila, where he met reporters.
Mohagher Iqbal, chief peace negotiator of the rebel Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), handed over the 79-year-old missioner to Rafael Seguis, his counterpart in the government peace panel.
The priest rejects the idea of seeking retribution.
"I have no plan to file any charges," he said.
Father Sinnott was abducted from the Columban Father's residence in Pagadian City on Oct. 11 by a group of men who bundled him in a van and then onto a boat, before handing him over to a second group.
The priest said the first group was a bit rough with him, but his captors treated him well and food was "adequate" considering the spartan conditions.
Father Sinnott said he has no idea who his kidnappers were but is "very sure" they were not MILF.
The second group of captors "knew nothing about me," he recounted, adding that they oppose the MILF for condemning kidnapping for ransom.
"They said it is alright for the MILF to say kidnapping is forbidden in the Qur'an," because the MILF gets international support. His captors said they had no other way to raise funds for weapons, the priest continued.
The missioner described his captors in the mountains as "very well organized." Supplies arrived regularly, and he was given food "specially for me" twice a day.
Earlier, while he was held in the forest, his captors said attempts to free him had been foiled by bad weather.
Father Sinnott explained that his kidnappers had scripted the message he read on a video made on Oct. 24 and sent to the crisis management committee five days later.
"It was written in Bisaya (or Cebuano, a dialect used in central and southern Philippines), and I had to translate it into English," the priest said. The group had also lectured him about their ideology.
They told him they were freeing him so he could tell the international community they are lumad, indigenous Filipinos of Mindanao, the southern Philippine region, and would fight until Mindanao was "independent" with the Qur'an as its constitution.
Father Sinnott, speaking in both English and Bisaya, thanked "every one of my friends that I know prayed for me while I was in captivity."
The MILF has not disclosed where they found Father Sinnott, nor any details about his abductors. However, Iqbal said MILF task force members had spoken with relatives of the kidnappers and "applied moral pressure" to release the priest without ransom.
"Kidnapping is illegal in Islam," he said, "and Father Sinott's recovery did not involve any money."
http://www.ucanews.com/2009/11/12/freed-father-sinnott-vows-to-resume-mi...
