I was on a trip for some documentary film project in Mindanao, the beleaguered region in southern Philippines that has lately figured in international news once again due to radical Islamists and their kidnap-for-ransom enterprise, when I found myself in a small dusty town in deepest darkest Mindanao.

I quickly finished shooting the interviews for the documentary a few hours after I arrived, and was ready to leave the seemingly uninhabited town the day after.

Ready to leave town that morning, I walked up to side of the main highway where the lone minibus was marked to pass by. Only one such passenger vehicle drops by this particular town everyday. The mid-morning trip to the town is also the one and only return trip for the day. There was no way I would have wanted to extend my overnight stay. The quiet but pervading fear was too palpable.

This town is where renegade members of an already renegade Muslim guerrilla group are supposed to be having their transit point to other hiding places in the province, which makes the town an unfortunate stop-over point in the guerrillas’ escape itinerary. And where Muslim rebels are, government troops aren’t too far behind.

I was told that the windows and doors of the houses in the town are never left open, making the place look abandoned. Except for the two mothers that I saw walking to what must be a town well to fetch their families’ drinking water supply for the day, and save for the exhilarating thought that the minibus was assuredly to come by that morning, I swore it was a ghost town I’d been in.

There were no children playing in the streets, no youth visiting one another’s homes. There weren’t even chickens in the yards. That’s how the town had been and how it will be for an indeterminable length of time, I was told by the local government official who graciously hosted my one-day stay.

I stood by the dusty highway, impatient. The minibus was definitely delayed by at least half an hour. The mid-morning sun was scorching. The winds lifted the thick dust off the wide unasphalted road.

I was hurriedly reaching into my bag for a handkerchief when out of the nearby clump of woods appeared a group of males. By the size of the crowd, it looked like there were at least 50 or 60 of them. They were heading towards me! Through the dust, I could discern each one carrying a long pointed instrument. My imagination was telling me that those were long firearms! My heart was pounding out of my chest! I wanted to hurry back to the house where I came from but my feet couldn’t move.

As the men approached closer, I saw that they weren’t men. They were boys! Minors, definitely. Most of them looked not older than 15 or 16 years old. There were some who looked 10 or 12 years of age. Suddenly, I remembered that the Moro Islamic Liberation Front is known to recruit child soldiers. This is it, I thought! This must be one of those stop-over jaunts the guerrillas take that the local government official was talking about.

The boys stopped on my opposite side of the road. It was apparent that they were waiting for something, looking up and down the dusty road. I so wanted to take out my camera to take a shot but instincts told me that that may mean my life.

I also saw that the long things they were carrying were not firearms but shovels, hoes, and pickaxes strapped to their backs.

The roar of a vehicle came up. Not long after, a huge bus rolled up, stirring more dust into what seemed like a dust storm. All the minors quickly climbed aboard. In a second, the bus drove off. The thick dust was too much for my already aching eyes, but I managed to get a glimpse of the back of the bus as it sped away.

I was able to figure out the letters written on its back.

The letters read DOLE Philippines.

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