By Brian Anderson
Valley Times

April 19, 2001

SAN FRANCISCO — Jeffrey Schilling, the 25-year-old Oakland man kidnapped and held hostage for nearly eight months in the jungles of the Philippines, returned home early Wednesday morning to family, friends, hugs and tears.

Looking tired and a bit dazed, Schilling walked out of the gangway at San Francisco International Airport next to his beaming mother, Carol Schilling, who had boarded the plane moments after it arrived about 5 a.m.

Smiling family and friends quickly wrapped their arms around the man who was thinner than the “gentle giant” his mother had referred to in interviews with reporters throughout the emotionally-draining ordeal.

“He’s lost a lot of weight,” Carol Schilling said of her only child whom she had spoken to only a couple of times since his abduction in August.

One family friend carried flowers while Schilling’s uncle, David Schilling, brought along a plastic container filled with homemade peanut butter cookies and brownies his wife had baked for her nephew.

“It’s great to have him back,” said David Schilling, who left for the airport from Fresno about 1 a.m. with his brother Mike Schilling.

Wearing a backpack, white windbreaker and navy blue workout pants, Schilling and his entourage of greeters, including a mob of reporters, were ushered by a dozen police officers to a nearby podium where he declined through his mother to answer questions.

Carol Schilling said she was “delighted” to have her son back in the Bay Area and was looking forward to a private homecoming party as well as recovering from the lengthy standoff between the Philippine government and the Abu Sayyaf kidnappers.

“It’s been such a miracle of faith that we’ve been able to see my son Jeffrey here today,” she said. “I’m feeling fine.”

With a whisper in her ear from the son she had not held for more than a year, Carol Schilling added that the onetime political pawn was “very sad” because his wife Ivy Osani remained in the Philippines navigating immigration procedures. She said they hoped to reunite her with Schilling soon.

“This won’t be a complete happy ending until we have Ivy here in the United States,” she said.

Jeffrey Schilling, a Muslim convert, met his wife after travelling to the island country in March of last year to experience the culture and meet new friends following his graduating from UC Berkeley in 1999. They married last summer.

His relationship with Osani and her link to the Abu Sayyaf has raised a number of questions in the minds of skeptics over whether Schilling was in deed a hostage or a willing sympathizer to the group’s fight for an independent Islamic state.

Schilling reportedly went to the Jolo island camp of the Abu Sayyaf with Osani, a cousin of group leader Abu Sabaya. She left without her husband at some point, discovering later that they had refused to allow him to leave.

Some Philippines officials said the story was a ruse and publicly accused Schilling of being a rebel. At least one news account heralded comments of a police chief that branded the man as an armed-leader of his own unit while other reports said he was a gun-runner and was actively recruiting others to aid the cause.

Abu Sayyaf leaders, however, accused Schilling of working for the CIA after they said he introduced himself as a Muslim but knew very little about Islam. Spurred by multimillion-dollar ransoms paid by other countries for hostages, the group demanded millions from the United States in exchange for the American.

One American Embassy in Manila called the group’s accusations ridiculous. U.S. officials refused to pay or otherwise negotiate with the group and consistently backed the Philippine government’s efforts to free Schilling.

Schilling did not respond Wednesday to a question asking why he had gone to the camp. In a brief press conference with members of the foreign media shortly after he was released, he denied allegations linking him to the group.

"I was never in cahoots with the Abu Sayyaf," he said.

Valarie Revels, a longtime friend of Carol Schilling and a “second mother” to her son, said the boy she watched grow up reading mystery novels and painting most likely used solid judgement before visiting the rebels.

“Whatever decision he made I’m sure he had a good reason for it,” she said Wednesday at the airport. “I’m just glad he’s here. I’m just glad he’s alive.”

Schilling was rescued last week after a daring daylight military assault on the kidnappers. He had been held since Aug. 28 and forced to dodge heavily-armed soldiers who chased the rebels from one spot to another at the direction of then-Philippines President Joseph Estrada.

The battles grew more intense as time passed, reaching a pinnacle about two weeks ago after the group’s leader vowed to behead Schilling as a birthday gift to Estrada’s successor, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Similar threats had come and gone in the past without the group taking action, but the threat was being taken seriously by most officials close to the case.

Carol Schilling and her partner Anthony Rodgers rushed to Manila where Carol pleaded over radio airways, as she had done multiple times in the past, for the group to spare her son’s life. They relented, but the military did not.

Days before the deadline, Arroyo called for an “all-out war” on the rebels and continues to follow through with her pledge.

A tip from residents in the Jolo town of Luuk led an elite marine group to the camp where Schilling was chained. During a violent exchange between soldiers and the group that killed at least four rebels, he slipped from his bonds and fled the camp.

He flew to Guam on Sunday after a medical exam and questioning by Philippines and United States government officials.

He has declined all requests by media for interviews and has not publicly talked about details of his capture or confinement.

Schilling arrived Wednesday on a regularly-scheduled 5-hour flight from Honolulu that also carried flower shirt-clad tourists returning from trips to the islands. Tourists and friends alike watched as Schilling, whose private life was launched by the kidnapping into international headlines, was whisked out of the airport and into a waiting van that drove off with a police motorcycle escort.

“We’re always there for him,” said Tarecq Amer, 29, who passed up sleep to welcome his friend home at the airport. “I’ll be waiting for the phone call.”