Father Nacorda has every reason to be armed following his 61-day kidnapping by Muslim extremists. Miriam Donohoe reports
Father Cirilo Nacorda travels nowhere on his native Basilan island in the southern Philippines without carrying a gun. He even tucks his trusty .45 automatic under his vestments when he is on the altar celebrating daily Mass in St Peter's church.
The stocky 44-year-old makes no apologies for carrying a lethal weapon in God's house. "God gave us the precious gift of life, and we owe it to him to protect that gift," he said yesterday.
Father Nacorda has good reason to be armed. He was kidnapped on the tiny, heavily-forested island and held for 61 days by a squad of Abu Sayyaf terrorists in 1994. He was released only after the Filipino government paid a €40,000 ransom.
Last June, he narrowly escaped being kidnapped again by the Muslim extremist group with links to al-Qaeda when they stormed his church compound.
The outspoken cleric was born and raised on Basilan, and is now parish priest in his home town of Lamitan.
He has mixed feelings about the arrival last week of US troops in Zamboanga, on the island of Mindanao, to help train Filipino soldiers in their war against Abu Sayyaf.
Some 160 special forces are due on Basilan in the next month to start putting the local scout rangers through their paces.
"There are too many soldiers already on Basilan. We have 12,000 militia and 8,000 soldiers. That is 20,000 against 80 Abu Sayyaf men. I believe the US can help. But sending their soldiers here is overkill."
Father Nacorda was yesterday several hundred miles away in Davao city in Mindanao addressing a diocesan conference called "Our changing world - its impact on the diocesan clergy".
He didn't have his gun with him. "I am happy enough to travel unarmed once I am off Basilan."
The priest's terrifying ordeal with Abu Sayyaf began on June 8th, 1994, when he was travelling to his parish in an old jeep down a remote road.
"I was stopped on the road about two kilometres from my parish by a group of between 60 and 70 Abu Sayyaf.
" I was taken and had my hands tied behind my back. Others had been stopped also and the guerrillas started to separate the Muslims and the Christians. The Muslims were set free." Sixteen hostages, including the priest, were tied together and marched into the hills. After walking for two miles, Father Nacorda was separated from the group and taken away.
A while later he heard firing. At first he thought it was the military attacking the bandits but he learned the next day that the hostages were shot in cold blood.
The priest was taken into the centre of the dense jungle which Abu Sayyaf calls home. During the first few weeks of his captivity, he argued with his kidnappers. He told them he thought Islam preached peace.
"Why are you killing people if you are supposed to be preaching peace?" he asked.
The captors tortured Father Nacorda on a daily basis. One of the most terrifying ordeals, and something which still gives him nightmares, was being used as a human target during the bandits' knife-throwing practice.
"They put me sitting eight metres away and would start throwing their long knives. "They never hit me but they got close a few times."
After two weeks, he decided to stop arguing and his captors started to treat him better.
For the next two months he was moved around the jungle between Abu Sayyaf bases.
"I really thought I would never come out alive." He was released after 61 days when a ransom was paid.
Father Nacorda found himself brushing with Abu Sayyaf again on June 1st last year during a bloody siege in his church compound in Lamitan.
A group of 40 hardened Abu Sayyaf fighters, who days previously had kidnapped tourists from a resort in Malaysia, arrived looking for hospital treatment. They stormed the compound.
Several people were killed in crossfire, including one of Father Nacorda's sacristans.
At one stage bullets whizzed six inches over his head. He ended up hiding in a house at the back of the compound until the siege was over.
Father Nacarda is leading a campaign to have what he claims is the true story of that night revealed. He says the guerillas were able to sneak out of the compound in single file while the army was there.
He says his information is that the army got €500,000 for letting them escape.
Both houses of the Filipino congress have had investigations into the incident, but Father Nacorda's accusations have not yet been proven.
The priest, backed up by the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, is calling for a new, independent investigation.
Father Nacorda believes that the Abu Sayyaf could be wiped out if there was a will. However, he claims that the military and Basilan's governor, Mr Wahab Akbar, support Abu Sayyaf, allegations which are vehemently denied.
Now Father Nacorda finds he is facing three enemies: the bandits, the governor and the military. "There are many who would like to see me dead, but I will keep speaking out." But he says he is always prepared for the end. "Every day I ask God for forgiveness for my sins because I do not know when or where my time will come. I will keep fighting until the truth comes out."
