Former president Fidel Ramos should face the Senate defence committee inquiry and clarify what he did about a 1994 report submitted to him by Catholic priest Cirilo Nacorda on alleged collusion bet-ween the military and Abu Sayyaf bandits, a senator said yesterday.

Minority leader Aquilino Pimentel said he would ask Senator Ramon Magsaysay, defence committee chairman, to invite Ramos to shed light on Nacorda's claim that he had reported the "unholy alliance" between the military and the southern Philippines-based Moro separatist group to Ramos himself.

"Mr. Ramos should be asked to cap the Senate inquiry (into the alleged military-Abu Sayyaf conspiracy) with an overview of what he did in relation to Fr. Nacorda's report," Pimentel noted.

The senate is currently holding an inquiry into Nacorda's allegation following an incident in southern Basilan's Lamitan town last June 2 wherein trapped Abu Sayyaf militants holding more than a dozen hostages were able to slip past a military encirclement and flee to the jungles.

The militants are still holding several of their hostages, including two Americans who were taken along with 20 others from a resort on western Palawan island.

In an article in The Monitor, the official newsletter of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines, Nacorda claimed he had submitted a report to Ramos in 1997 on his assumptions of a military-Abu Sayyaf collusion after the rebels held him hostage for three weeks in 1994.

Pimentel pointed out that if Fr. Nacorda's claim is true, "Ramos would have some direct knowledge of possible collusion between some Armed Forces elements and the Abu Sayyaf bandits".

"So it is important to know what the former President did about it," Pimentel added.

Pimentel said he would also ask Magsaysay to invite Fr. Nacorda and at least five other witnesses to give further testimonies before the defence committee concludes its hearings on the collusion issue. Members of the defence committee earlier flew to Basilan to look into allegations.

Pimentel, in a privilege speech, had also cited reports that the Abu Sayyaf bandit group was a military "creation" that started out as rebels but eventually branched out into criminal activities such as extortion and kidnapping for ransom.