Perhaps part of the answer can be traced to a day-long battle on June 2, 2001, when those same brutish gentlemen mentioned above were trapped inside a hospital compound in Lamitan, Basilan. The Philippine military had them surrounded, with dozens of local militia giving them support. Inside with the Abu Sayyaf top brass and their followers were more than two dozen VIP hostages just snatched from a Palawan resort -- notably the US missionary couple Martin and Gracia Burnham, and Filipino magnate Regis Romero.

The 20 or so journalists there -- including Arlyn dela Cruz, Romy Gacad, Maki Pulido, Raffy Tima, Dennis Sabangan, Patrick Paez, and myself -- thought they were covering the historic end of the Abu Sayyaf. Another leader, Abu Sabaya, was also holed up inside the hospital. They seemed to have shown up at the hospital just to release Romero and his girlfriend in exhange for a ransom. But they were surprised by the accidental appearance of a passing company of rookie Scout Rangers.

For the next 12 or so hours of fighting, the rookie Rangers got little support. No troop reinforcements arrived, strange considering the Abu Sayyaf had become public enemy number one. Plus three of the hostages were Americans, a naturalized Peruvian aside from the Burnham couple. The Philippines' main military donor was watching very closely.

If the Philippine military had executed a plan with minimal competence, its soldiers would have been widely hailed as heroes, rescuing hostages while destroying a thorn in society.

That chance of a lifetime slipped away in the afternoon when soldiers guarding the back of the hospital compound suddenly got orders to leave their posts and attend a meeting. A meeting!

According to civilian witnesses I interviewed, the Abu Sayyaf sauntered through a back gate as if they were taking their chained hostages out for a walk.

In the book Gracia Burnham wrote after her ordeal, she says that Philippine generals had previously declined US offers for a more active combat role, proudly insisting that their men could take care of this scourge. Martin Burnham would later die in a Philippine assault on the hostage group. Gracia returned a year later to testify. Torn and Frayed summarized the Inquirer's disgraceful coverage of her testimony, making it seem she was "clearing" the military of collusion.

In Torn and Frayed's comments section, the commanding general on the ground , Lt. Gen Romeo Dominguez, offers a feeble defense here: The failure was due not to treason but to "operational lapses" by officers way below his pay grade. What happened to command responsibility? And with the top leaders of the Abu Sayyaf trapped, shouldn't Gen. Dominguez have been directly in charge? Dominguez, by the way, was promoted shortly after that incident, news that almost made me choke on my lunch when I heard it on the radio.

Inquirer editor and writer John Nery later makes up for his paper's coverage with his detailed probe of what happened in Lamitan. Unfortunately, Inq7 no longer has his series archived. Too bad -- it would help to put the current Abu Sayyaf campaign in perspective.

More than a year after the Lamitan fiasco, I met US Special Forces troops newly assigned to Basilan in a training and advisory role. We discussed the Abu Sayyaf's situation inside the hospital a year earlier. They told me that the seige was the best possible situation for those who were hunting the Abu Sayyaf down. The alternative was chasing them in the outlaws' native forests, which is exactly what has happened, costing hundreds of lives since that bewildering escape from Lamitan.

Nearly everyone who witnessed what happened believe there was connivance between the Abu Sayyaf and the Philippine military. But the AFP leadership has always been quick to deny it.

There are only two possible explanations for what may be the biggest failure in Philippine military history: monumental treason or monumental incompetence.

With US officers on their backs, the local guys seem to have acquired new predatory skills since that embarrassing day in June 2001. Faces of their prey in rigor mortis on the front pages of newspapers prove their killing prowess.

By all means, let's award military heroes.

But there should be accountability for those who didn't get the job done in the first place.