The full story
31.03.2010
Q: How would you describe your overall feelings about your time in captivity?
A: It is difficult for me to describe my feelings about my experience. I often wonder in recent days what was the purpose of it all? Looking back on it, there was a calm there always, there was peace, and after the first day or two that feeling that I could leave everything in God’s hands; He would take care of everything; let Him do what He liked and we would take it day by day.
Q: What were your most positive and negative feelings?
A: Now that I have come through it, the most positive feeling is that God did take care of me. From the very beginning I prayed for two things. After I had gone through the by-pass operation some years ago, I was afflicted with a bout of depression for several months and found it an awful experience.
So, I prayed especially that God would not allow me to be depressed during my time in captivity. He granted me that grace. Secondly, since we were initially without my heart medicines,
I prayed that if I had a recurrence of heart problems I would not be left an invalid in their hands.
As for negative feelings, there was one particularly trying time. After ten days in the swamps they told me I was coming out to freedom. We hiked about two hours or more to the seashore, then travelled by speed-boat for seven and half hours. I was covered by a tarpaulin. Once it became light I saw that we were sitting in the middle of a bay and I knew that I was not going to be freed.
Q: It cannot have been easy to pray in such circumstances?
A: All that there was to do was to pray. The days were long and the nights were longer. I was in my hammock at 6:00pm and that was it until 6:30 the following morning. Then, all day long, particularly for the first 10 days, we were on a type of mud-bank, about one metre by three in size, so that for exercise all one could do was to stamp up and down.
I was annoyed with the Lord at the beginning; I felt He should give me a sense of His closeness and without that I found it difficult to pray.
I eventually established a kind of routine, and after those first days, as I said, there was a kind of peace. But no matter how I tried to pray I felt no devotion or no sense of closeness to God.
Q: What of your relationship with your kidnappers?
A: I was roughly handled the night I was first captured. However once I was placed, blindfolded, in the base of the speed-boat I was assured by them that they would never even think of killing a priest. From that time on my captors could not have done more to make things as easy as possible for me, in the difficult circumstances under which we were living.
Initially I had seven guards and I got a lot of ‘ideological lectures’ during those ten days in the swamps. They prayed three times a day to Allah and they urged me to pray to God for my quick release. The two guards who stayed with me in the forest both spoke the Cebuano Visayan language that I speak. However, among themselves they spoke a language which I did not understand.
During the hard hikes they were patient with me every time I had to stop and get my breath back. When I eventually became exhausted, they cut down a branch of a tree, slung the hammock under it and carried me the rest of the way.
There was a small stream of running water, not fit for drinking, but it could be used for washing and cooking. The hardest thing for me to get used to was the lack of privacy for toilet and washing. The diet agreed with me from the beginning and I had no problem with it.
I lost six pounds during the whole ordeal. As a result of the extraordinary number of prayers that I now hear were being offered for me, I never had an ache or a pain, a cold or a cough, even though we were living in fairly miserable conditions, and often slept in wet clothes. I have been amazed at this outpouring of prayer; I didn’t do anything extraordinary, nothing that anybody else would not have done in the same circumstances.
I often prayed that the military would not try to rescue me. In the confined areas in which I was being kept, there was no way that I could have survived a shoot-out.
Q: What of your work with disabled children over the past ten years?
A: I spent most of my life in parish work and was always coming across these people with disabilities, particularly the children. Once I was freed from parish work, I started this programme with the support of the Bishop and the Columbans. I don’t feel that I brought anything special to that work. Our purpose is to train parents and families how to best help these children reach their fullest development.
The parents did not know how to help their children. Now they are delighted and amazed at how their children have grown more open, alive and interested through the programme. We try to make the children as independent as possible especially regarding their personal needs. I think that the atmosphere of love, support and concern that they experience in our centre has given them a greater sense of their own dignity as persons.
Rather than calling them disabled, we prefer to say that these children are ‘differently abled.’
Conclusion
I would like again to express my appreciation to all the officials involved and my gratitude for all the prayers that were said by people who never heard of me, or never knew me, not only in the Philippines and Ireland but also in other parts of the world.
Fr Des Quinn was ordained with Fr Sinnott in December 1954. He spent almost 47 years ministering in the Philippines, on the island of Negros and in Manila.
