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CNN Live At Daybreak

Abu Sayyaf Finds Some Support Among Poor Filipinos

Aired January 23, 2002 - 06:32   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: The United States focuses on eliminating terrorists linked to al Qaeda. It appears the Philippines will be the next battle front.

CNN's Maria Ressa explains why things may be different in the next war zone.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARIA RESSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This Muslim neighborhood in Zamboanga is one of the Philippines poorest, no electricity, no running water.

People wait in line to pay for drinking water with money that could buy food for people like Kulma. She can't read. She can't write. She doesn't even know how old she is. She earns about $10 a month weaving these mats, not enough to feed her mother and children.

KULMA (through translator): I borrow from the store. If no one wants to lend us money, we don't eat. Sometimes people give us food.

RESSA: Her whole family eats and sleeps in this room. Like most of her neighbors, the family's latrine empties directly into the sea, which is also where they get water to wash and bathe.

Not surprisingly, most in this Muslim neighborhood sympathize with the Abu Sayyaf, who they see as men who pick up the gun in order to help their family survive. The government calls them terrorists.

GLORIA MACAPAGAL ARROYO, PRESIDENT OF THE PHILIPPINES: Although it's evil that causes terrorism. Terrorism can find its mass base among the poor. So they are linked with each other and the fight against one is also the fight against the other.

RESSA: Complicating that fight is the near breakdown of law and order. In Basilan those who can afford it carry a gun including this parish priest who says it's necessary for protection. This man looks like a soldier -- he's not, but he is part of another mass security team.

These are the conditions hundreds of U.S. soldiers will be walking into. A potentially protracted guerrilla war among sympathizers who have little to lose. Kulma has no idea American troops are coming. She doesn't even know who the president of the country is.

President Arroyo says her first goal is to wipe out the Abu Sayyaf. Once terrorism stops, she says then she can begin to work on development. But like the chicken or the egg, the question is will terrorism survive if it didn't find such easy breeding grounds.

Maria Ressa, CNN, Zamboanga City, the Philippines.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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