The guards of Zamboanga City

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines – It begins at 2:20 pm. The sun is high. There is no road, only a stretch of dry sand cupping a swamp dotted with mangroves. The troops face the swamp, watching through mirrored sunglasses.

At first they see only the women. There are two of them. They walk across the dry sand, past the mangroves, the sea behind them, clutching each other by the hand. The younger is 20 years old, a college student in the city. The older woman is her aunt from Talon-Talon. There is a man who walks with them, behind them, almost invisible to the company of policemen watching from makeshift outposts.

Suit up, says the company commander. Suit up, gear up, load.

The man prods the women forward with his M16. The man with the rifle is in his 40s, dressed in shorts and a camouflage shirt.

The troops watch from across the sand. They take their positions and wait. Engagement is not possible, not with the hostages providing cover. The commander calls for a sniper.

They shout for the walking man to stop. Surrender, let the women go.

The man keeps walking.

“We knew if he passed us he would be out of our sight,” says Senior Police Inspector Jinkie Tuguic, commanding officer of the 25^th Special Action Company of the Philippine National Police’s Special Action Force (SAF).

Past a turn in the road, past the first detachment of policemen, the man moves from behind the women, guarding his flank from troops before him, exposing himself to the men at his back. It is a 30-degree angle.

“I called to shoot,” says Tuguic.

The sniper takes his shot. The man falls, a bullet in his back. Then the men of the PNP-SAF run to rescue the women.

The dead man’s name is Yusop Yahya, and the ID he carries is signed by Professor Doctor Nur P. Misuari. His body is left until the morning. The SAF retrieves it, after securing the area. You cannot be complacent, they say. The coast is the only way out of Zamboanga City, and many have tried to brazen their way through.

It is 2:35 in the afternoon, 15 minutes after the man first crossed the shoreline. It was, says Tuguic, just an ordinary day.

Flown from Subic

Talon-Talon is where the first boats of MNLF rebels broke through on September 9, dozens of the old men walking through the broken alleys, the bright red patch sewn on camouflage sleeves.

For the last 4 days, this is where Tuguic and his men have been deployed, watching the coastline for escaping rebels. They have been in Zamboanga for 13 days, flown in all the way from Subic bay in Zambales to keep the peace in the crisis.

Four days on the coast means 4 days without showers or changes of clothes—although one man proudly announces he washed his underwear the night before. Their uniforms are back in the town hall base, they cannot risk leaving their posts. The uniforms they are wearing are torn, skin showing through camouflage pants after the encounter with the MNLF rebels.

Today an air force Huey batters the mangroves with machine fire. The sound is a constant. The men are silent as it happens. They wait, and watch for any rebels to come out of hiding.

READ: AFP mounts air strikes vs rebels

When all is quiet, the joking begins. They go by nicknames, the men of the 25th. Zamby, Loverboy, Ivan, Roger, Tikboy, although they laugh when they introduce themselves.

They are used to this life, and have been friends for a long time. Water comes from a garden hose, food comes in from the city, although sometimes civilians offer them meals. They sleep in shifts, on hammocks slung under their makeshift camp or on flattened cardboard boxes. Some of them take out photos of wives and babies, tucked into metal cases and wrapped in plastic in case of disaster.

Morale is low

They believe in what they do. Earlier yesterday, two PNP-SAF members were killed in action. Morale is low, says Tikboy. The men are men they know.

READ: Day 16: Malik’s trusted aide killed

Jinkee talks about Zamby, PO3 Edison Zambrano, who found out in the middle of a clearing operation that his father died of a stroke in Palawan.

“When I heard he was dead,” says Zambrano, “I sat down. I was tired. I was very tired. I went out of focus, violated SOPs. You’re not supposed to take off your helmet or your shoes or your bulletproof vest, but I did all that. I couldn’t think, I needed to focus.”

Real men cry, he says, and he did, in the corner of a room in a house in a town thick with smoke.

“But I had to focus. So I geared up. I put my helmet on. Put my boots on. My kit. And I assumed my service.”

A resident runs into the detachment, he says there is a man hiding in the bushes across the sand. The men jump to their feet, bulletproof vests already buckled, each man carrying a basic load of 300 rounds. They call for the sniper, and they run, in a line, to hunt for the next rebel.

In the distance, there is gunfire.

It is an ordinary day. – Rappler

Video directed and edited by Paolo Villaluna, written and produced by Patricia Evangelista with cinematography by Raymund Amonoy.