A DOZEN young men who looked barely in their teens, but armed with automatic weapons, quickly surrounded our pickup as soon as we got to the camp. I got out and greeted them with the customary "Salaam Alaikum." A small, wiry man approached and spoke to us in Bahasa Melayu, after which he took our equipment and led us to the foot of a raised hut where the hostages were. There the man told us what we could shoot and what were off-limits. Which is to say, we were just supposed to focus on the hostages and nothing else. Duly instructed, we went up to the 10-meter-by-10-meter hut.

The first hostages we laid our eyes on were the Malaysians, who looked rather stunned. I introduced myself to everyone as a photojournalist representing a newspaper in Singapore, and asked if they were being treated well. Monique Strydom, a South African, rolled her eyes, but she said that considering the circumstances, they were all right. She and her husband Callie were sandwiched by armed men.

The Strydoms said they all had been walking through the jungle for days trying to avoid the military until they got to that place. Because of the military operations, the Abu Sayyaf had not been able to send people to town for food.

Next we saw the French hostages; the doctor had already given Stephane Loisy, whom she had diagnosed as having urinary tract infection, some antibiotics and anti-diarrhea pills. I also spotted one of the Germans, Renate Wallert, slumped against a wall and shivering. I asked if she needed medical attention. She said, "Yes, but your doctor is so busy treating the men, not us." I turned around and sure enough, the doctor was being mobbed by the kidnappers to whom she was dispensing medication. One of the Abu Sayyaf was drinking cough syrup from a bottle that had its top broken off. I went up to the doctor and said that one of the hostages needed attention, and if she could please look her over. She replied, "But she is just sitting there. If she needed help, why doesn't she come over?"

I said, "I think that's the reason why she needs help, ma'am. She cannot come over."

Up to now I give thanks to the cosmos for keeping my sphincter tight after the kidnappers gave me dirty looks and whispered to each other when the doctor went over to the hostages. I photographed her treating Renate Wallert. The doctor asked if I could give her some copies of the pictures once we got back to Jolo. Sure, I said, how many did she want?

I made small talk with the hostages while shooting pictures. They were still wearing the same clothes they had on when they were first taken from Sipadan. They asked for writing paper. Most of the notes - apparently to their respective embassies - they wrote during our visit were collected by Misuari's men.

I had been shooting for about 30 minutes when the small man who had welcomed us finally introduced himself as Commander Robot. I thought that he sure picked an oxymoron of a nom de guerre. I mean, a robot is supposed to take commands, but here was a robot giving the orders.

This Robot also wanted to borrow one of my cameras. He then began to playfully take pictures of his men and the hostages. It occurred to me that he was photographing the unmasked men he had told us not to take pictures of earlier. He was even asking them to huddle closer to the hostages, the better to get everyone in the frame.

The hostages were all given vitamin supplements and anti-diarrhea pills. We were there for maybe just an hour and were headed back to Jolo before nightfall. Just before we reached the main road, the military met us. The TV cameraman jumped out of the pickup, greeted the colonel in charge and showed him the footages he had taken. The colonel pronounced pompously, "We have them now," and was seconded by his men who immediately huddled over a map. I asked if I could go ahead as I needed to file my pictures. But Misuari's people said I had to wait before going to the main highway; according to them, armed men led by a relative of a local official were out to kidnap us to sabotage the talks. Which I found rather had to believe because we had been going to that official's house almost every day, and would even eat there.

But Misuari's people were already calling for an armored car to "back up" the jeep we were riding. Why we weren't put in the armored car itself is beyond me. Anyway, once in Jolo, we were led to the local government district office where we were asked to show what we got and discuss what we would be filing. The officials there watched the cameraman's footage and began planning to start operations the very next day.

Meanwhile, Misuari's men were trying to feed us a story for us to file. It went something like, "It is not true the Abu Sayyaf has rejected Misuari as negotiator and the group in fact has requested for him." This went on for an hour. They wanted copies of everything - the video, my pictures. I told them my film still had to be processed, so they turned to the cameraman. He explained that he was shooting in a format that needed a different machine to make copies. So one of Misuari's people called for the video camera left by journalist de la Cruz, and then asked the cameraman to preview the tape on the viewfinder while the other camera would record by having its lens pressed on the eyepiece. Obviously the guy was clueless about how these things worked.