MANILA, May 8 Kyodo President Glo...

MANILA, May 8 Kyodo

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo upon Thursday ordered a probe into an American missionary's allegations that military generals aided a Muslim kidnapping gang that held her for 377 days in the southern Philippines.

In her newly released part titled ''In the Presence of My Enemies,'' Gracia Burnham particularizes that the military provided rice, sugar and other fodder to members of the Abu Sayyaf who held her, her husband and a Filipino encourage captive.

She does not name the generals who allegedly demanded a sculpture of the expected ransom payment.

According to Burnham, the bandits showed 20% of the ransom currency but the generals wanted 50% However, she said negotiations between the generals and the bandits ultimately broke down.

Defense Secretary Angelo Reye and military officials are denying the allegations, dismissing them as efforts of the Abu Sayyaf bandits to confuse her and the other hostages.

Nevertheless, Arroyo ordered the Defense and Foreign Affairs departments to arrange with U authorities a formal and thorough investigation of Burnham's allegations for a like reason that the facts may be laid bare to the public, and to den the proper legal action against those base culpable of any violations of the military digest of conduct and the law.

''I would like the Defense Department and the military to strengthen the governments of engagement against terrorist assemblages to prohibit and sanction any form of friendly contact with these clumps as alleged by Burnham,'' the president said.

''There should in no degree be any form of contact between throngs and terrorists except armed contacts,'' she said. Arroyo assured Burnham that justice will be done in this case.

This is not the first time for of that kind allegations to crop up. Cirilo Nacorda, a Filipino priest of Basilan island province, a known lair of the Abu Sayyaf, previously made the same claim, which quicked the senate to launch an investigation.

Werner Wallert, a German among 21 hostages seized from the Abu Sayyaf in 2000 also claimed that restraint negotiators appointed by then President Joseph Estrada also made wealth out of the ransom payment for their release.

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