(27 Apr 2002)
Zamboanga
1. Journalist Arlyn de la Cruz gets off plane
2. Cutaway policemen watching
3. Various of de la Cruz being escorted
4. SOUNDBITE (English/Tagalog) Arlyn de la Cruz, Journalist
"I want to see my family without the help of the senator and those people. I won't see my family anymore because I have no other way. I don't know, this effort is very silent and it's really with the will of god."
Manila
5. Various of arrival of de la Cruz, getting off plane and hugging her relatives
STORYLINE:
A controversial television journalist, missing for three months, has been freed by former Muslim rebels in the southern Philippines.
Arlyn de la Cruz was released at about 5:30 a-m on Saturday (2230 GMT, Friday) on Jolo island and denied that she faked her abduction.
She was taken to the airport at Zamboanga, on nearby Mindanao island, then flown by private plane to Manila.
The 32-year-old reporter, looking tired and strained and with insect bites on her arms, cried and embraced her mother and sister as she arrived in the capital wearing a Muslim head scarf.
De la Cruz obtained the first interviews of American missionaries Martin and Gracia Burnham, who are being held hostage by the Muslim extremist Abu Sayyaf group, late last year.
She then vanished in January.
She said she was dragged around several towns on Jolo and believes her kidnappers were former members of the Muslim separatist Moro National Liberation Front who had been integrated into the Philippine military.
She claimed no ransom was paid.
Philippines President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo welcomed her release.
But other media questioned whether de la Cruz staged her own disappearance because of ethics issues raised in the past over her relationship with the Abu Sayyaf, the target of a U-S-backed search by the Philippine military on southern Basilan island.
De la Cruz, who has two young children, was last seen on January 19.
She said she was on her way to the Philippines' southernmost province to interview an Abu Sayyaf faction leader, but was seized by gunmen who killed her two Abu Sayyaf guides.
She claimed her captors thought she was acting as a go-between for the release of the Burnhams and carrying 800-thousand U-S dollars in ransom they hoped to steal, and were angry to find she had only about 40 U-S dollars.
Her friends argue that de la Cruz is a hardworking reporter who has won the Abu Sayyaf's trust, which they say has spawned slander from jealous competitors.
Critics call her a self-promoter, questioning whether she cut a deal with the al-Qaida-linked rebels to share the proceeds from interviews with its captives that are sold to the highest media bidder.
She had also obtained the first interviews with Western tourists snatched by the Abu Sayyaf from a Malaysian resort in 2000.
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