DFive Boholano seamen finally sailed to freedom after seven months of captivity by armed Somali pirates whose transnational crimes have outpaced United Nations' effort to combat them. The pirates, who were armed with high-powered AK 47 and rocket-propelled guns, released them together with 19 other crewmen after risky negotiations since April reportedly ultimately settled at $9 million ransom. One of the Boholano hostages, Dennis Manuta, returned home in barangay Cabawan, Maribojoc timely for the traditional marking of the town fiesta on November 24. The 30-year-old mariner who is a PMI graduate said four of his fellow hostaged seamen are of Bohol roots but who have long migrated to other provinces, including in Mindanao, with their families. Of the captured sailors, 19 were Filipinos and five were Koreans.

The seamen have yet to claim their pays, benefits and insurance, including “war risk” compensation. Gov. Edgar Chatto met with Manuta right at the house here of the highest provincial official. The seaman narrated to the governor their captivity by heavily-armed Somali pirates from April 4 to November 6, this year. The seaman agreed with the governor that ships passing pirate seas should have boarding marshalls as in the case of planes, or escorting naval ships to be safer. Manuta said they were cruising the Indian Ocean aboard a huge crude oil carrier bound for the United States when the pirates attacked and seized them and their ship, a very large oil tanker. The pirates have expanded operations into the Indian Ocean, up to 1,000 nautical miles from Somalia. They usually operate within the Gulf of Aden, one of the world's busiest shipping lanes crossed by some 20,000 ships every year, and other waters off Somalia.

Manuta said the pirates used a “mother vessel” towing two or three skiffs or speed boats to help launch attacks far off the coast against even larger ships. The pirates commanded them to sail to Hobyo, a coastal area in Somali, where a thousand more pirates nest. They stayed as hostages aboard their ship midsea off Hobyo for exactly seven months and two days until their release. It was later in July when his parents informed the governor thru the OFW Affairs Office at capitol about their son's fate. The OFW desk handled by former university professor Reinerio Real quickly coordinated with the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and other concerned agencies.

TRAUMA

Manuta said their first two months in captivity were sleepless. The pirates would fire their guns whenever they could spot other ships, including UN coalition patrol vessels, near their area. They already ran out of food in July so that some of them had to catch fish using hooks from the upper deck of their ship. A mad pirate banged the handle of his pistol into the head of Manuta and hit the seaman's eye with its barrel. It occurred sometime in September when the pirates got almost totally impatient by the slow pace of ransom deal. At almost the same time, the OFW desk here got a reply from the DFA informing that the Philippine embassies in Nairobi, Manama and Korea were monitoring the negotiation between the shipping company and the pirates. The seized ship has Korean principals. Somali pirates have laid a complicated network of agents, including connections in Dubai and Kenya, to deal and launder ransom money, making their seizing of ships a lucrative business, according to experts.

FREEDOM DAY

Negotiators finally came to terms and, on November 6, a private plane dropped to the sea about 200 meters from the pirated ship a water-proof package containing the ransom money. The pirates had their own money counting machine. Manuta said their captors thus signaled them to sail to freedom. They were allowed to contact a Korean patrol vessel among the UN coalition forces as they sailed. The seamen navigated to Oman in the Middle East and then enplaned to Dubai from where they flew to Manila. There are still ships and mariners of different nationalities captured by pirates in Somalia. Somalia is a country having no functioning government since clan-based warlords toppled dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. It cannot address problems on its own, a fact made complex by the issue of jurisdiction over who can try crimes done in international waters like the Somali piracy. But the Boholano seaman they once hostaged said he will pursue his maritime profession, preferably overseas, again, even if he lost to the pirates some P.1 million worth of belongings---and risked his own life. Meanwhile, the remains of seaman Esmeraldo Patac already arrived home in Balilihan the other day from India where the mariner suffered a fatal stroke. (Ven rebo Arigo)