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Former New Tribes Missionary Gracia Burnham, who was held hostage with her husband for more than a year by Muslim militants in the southern Philippines, has stirred the Philippine government and military with a few statements in her new book about her captivity.

"When the [captors] went out for [food and supplies], they'd pick up ammunition as well," writes Burnham in In the Presence of My Enemies, which was released this week by Tyndale. "You may wonder how such a group as the Abu Sayyaf seemed to be well supplied with weaponry. Were their al-Qaeda friends sending them supply boats in the middle of the night? No, no—nothing so exotic as that. The Abu Sayyaf told us [its] source was none other than the Philippine army itself. … I was amazed. The fact that such firepower could quite possibly wind up killing one's fellow soldiers seemed not to matter at all."

Burnham says that "more than once" she heard one of the Abu Sayyaf leaders call a woman named Ma'am Blanco in the nearby city of Zamboanga on a satellite phone, requesting specific kinds of weapons and ammunition.

"Who are you ordering from?" she finally asked him.

"Oh, the army," the Abu Sayyaf leader said. "We pay a lot more than it should cost, of course. So somebody's making a lot of money. But at least we get what we need."

Elsewhere in the book, Burnham wrote that the military wasn't just providing weaponry. In January 2002, she says, the food supply was plentiful for "a most unusual reason":

The Armed Forces were feeding us! A group of them met our guys and handed over quantities of rice, dried fish, coffee, and sugar. This happened several times over the course of a few weeks.

Why in the world did President Arroyo's troops provide the Abu Sayyaf with their daily bread? We were told that it was because [Abu Sayyaf leader Abu] Sabaya was wheeling and dealing with the AFP general of that area over how to split up any ransom that might be paid. … Sabaya was willing to give the general 20 percent of the action. But the messenger reported back that this wasn't enough. The general wanted 50 percent—when his own government condemned the ransom concept altogether. We weren't really surprised at this, as over the years we had read newspaper articles about generals' wives installing floors of smuggled marble in Corinthian Gardens, an elite section of Manila, and about their children attending the best schools abroad. These things don't happen on a Filipino general's salary.

Burnham said she and her captors learned negotiations had broken down by listening to Radyo Agong, a radio station that regularly aired satellite phone interviews with the Burnhams and their captors during their captivity. Using an alias for Sabaya, the station aired a coded message: "The bank turned down your offer for the house that you wanted to sell, and they're going to come now and take the house by force. My advice would be for you to leave the house so you don't get in any trouble."

The allegations were hotly denied by Philippine military officials. Lt. Gen. Gregorio Camiling, who commanded the army during the early part of the hostage crisis, says Burnham doesn't know what she's talking about since she was dependent on her captors for information.

"They were inside; their minds could easily be controlled by Abu Sabaya and the rebels who could have fed them wrong information and acted out some drama," Camiling told the Associated Press. "How can she say they were soldiers? She was misled."

Gen. Roy Cimatu, who replaced Camiling in the AFP's efforts to attack the Abu Sayyaf, says Burnham's claims are disrespectful. "We lost 45 soldiers just for the rescue," he said. "It's really unfair to make those allegations considering the soldiers risked their lives and many lost their lives."

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May (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47