Smiling broadly, Filipino truck driver Angelo de la Cruz enjoyed his first taste of his newfound freedom on Tuesday after his life was spared thanks to the hasty withdrawal of Manila’s tiny military presence from Iraq.
Clamouring for a glimpse of the 46-year-old father of eight, journalists and cameramen swarmed around a grey Mercedes that purred through the gates of the Philippine embassy in Baghdad, escorting De la Cruz from the United Arab Emirates embassy across the capital where he was dumped by his abductors.
”I am fine and relaxed. I am extremely happy and I can’t say anything more than this,” De la Cruz said in a small room at the embassy.
The embassy has been besieged by reporters for the past week as the world waited to see if the unprecedented gamble by Manila to give in to the kidnappers would pay off.
Dressed in a striped T-shirt, the trucker was heard speaking to officials in Manila on the telephone saying over and again: ”Thank you, thank you. I am happy to be free.”
De la Cruz was unceremoniously deposited on a street corner outside the United Arab Emirates embassy in west Baghdad at about 10.30am local time, less than 24 hours after the remnants of the Philippines’ 51 soldiers and police crossed over the Iraqi border to Kuwait and then home one month earlier than scheduled.
The visitor apparently caught United Arab Emirates diplomats off guard but they soon agreed to help Manila transport De la Cruz — a cause célèbre in his home country after being paraded on television begging for his life — to Abu Dhabi for medical check-ups.
”He is in excellent health,” an embassy spokesperson said at the Emirates compound, which was also mobbed by reporters and camera crews.
Staff at the Philippine embassy were keeping a close eye on their precious guest, sheltering him from the media for the time being even as cameramen tried to scale a fence surrounding the building to get a better look.
”He has talked to his wife and he is looking forward to going home to see his children,” said Henry Omaga-diaz, a reporter with the Philippine network ABS-CBN who was allowed a rare audience with the trucker-turned-celebrity.
The former hostage looked clean-shaven and was eating a Philippine noodle dish called pancit, he said.
Manila’s nightmare started on July 7 when Al-Jazeera television broadcast a video in which the kidnappers showed De la Cruz cowering on his knees and pledged to execute him unless the Philippines withdrew its troops from Iraq within 72 hours.
The deadline was extended over time and the Philippine government, which initially pledged to stand firm in the face of such threats, began to soften.
The militants abducted De la Cruz near the insurgency hotbed of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, two weeks ago as he delivered oil supplies from nearby Saudi Arabia.
They had threatened to behead him unless the Philippines pulled out its troops. — Sapa-AFP