MANILA, Nov. 14, 2009—Releasing him as soon as possible was simply out of the question.

Irish priest Fr. Michael Sinnott said his kidnappers, which held him for a month in the jungle, wanted him “out” as soon as possible.

Do you want your freedom back again? Fr. Sinnott readily agreed. “So do we,” his abductors responded.

“Your freedom is our freedom. We don’t want to be here for a long time too. And we want to watch Pacquiao’s fight,” Fr. Sinnott quoted his kidnappers as saying.

Aside from the desire to watch the Nov. 15 bout between Pacquiao and Puerto Rican Miguel Cotto, the abductors also found it hard to take care of the elderly priest.

Fr. Sinnott himself knows he was a “burden” to his captors.

“With my age and condition, they really don’t want to hold me longer. I am old, and I had a hard time walking,” he said.

According to him, he was held in “very primitive” conditions in two areas, one a swampy area “with mud all around us.”

The 79-year old priest said he had also been kept in the jungle and at one point was forced to walk for around eight hours through the mountains.

Ideology

He said his captors, claimed to be from a local Muslim tribe, told him of their aspirations and frustrations in life.

And “they said that they kidnapped me to get media attention and let the people know they were the original lumads, the tribal people of Mindanao.”

Quoting his captors, Fr. Sinnott said “all their lands and home were taken from them and everything they had and made them live in poverty.”

“Now we are going to fight until Mindanao becomes a Muslim state, independent, with the Koran as the constitution and religion,” he further quoted his abductors as saying.

“They had an ideology and vowed to fight from generation to generation,” Fr. Sinnott said.

Big problem

According to Fr. Sinnott, his biggest problem was how to spend his day in captivity.

“The days were very long and the nights were longer because I was in a hammock from 6:00 o’clock in the evening until 6:00 o’clock in the morning and couldn’t possibly expect me to sleep twelve hours straight,” he explained.

He said the food was very good and had supplies everyday.

“I had bread for breakfast and lunch and four slices to make sandwiches with sandwich spread but didn’t have coffee,” he said.

Fr. Sinnott also said the medicines sent by his superior Fr. Patrick O’Donoghue and the Pagadian City-based Crisis Management Committee through various emissaries failed to reach him at all.

“I never got the medicines they sent me. The medicines they (kidnappers) gave me were bought in Cotabato City,” he said.

The priest was freed before dawn Thursday, declaring himself in good health and eager to continue his missionary work Pagadian City where he was abducted on Oct. 11.

His captors had demanded a $2 million ransom for his freedom.

But the Society of Saint Columban order to which Fr. Sinnott belongs, the Philippine authorities and the Irish government said no ransom was paid. (R. Lagarde/ M. Acuna)