President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo presented several victims of the Abu Sayyaf in her weekly radio and TV programmes to marshal support for her policy of allowing U.S. troops in Zamboanga and Basilan.

Arroyo urged them to tell the public about their experience. "I have been accused of being an Am-Girl (pro-American) because I have accepted U.S. assistance to end the Abu Sayyaf problem. With your stories, you can help me convince my critics that the Abu Sayyaf more than the Americans are the worst enemy," Arroyo said.

"As President, I say, it is time to stop their savage acts and extinguish their existence," Arroyo said, adding the militant group has no respect for life and the law and no fear of God.

"Our security and intelligence and armed and police forces are united and determined to crush all brutal kidnap syndicates. We will not stop until you are crushed," Arroyo told the 5,000 troops assigned to get them.

"Abu Sayyaf men rape their women hostages," said Joel Guillo, an accounting clerk of the Jose Torres Memorial Hospital in Lamitan. He was one of the 15 hostages seized when the bandits attacked the town in June 2001, after the abduction of more than 20 tourists from Dos Palmas Resort in Palawan, southwestern Philippines in May.

Sources said one of the women hostages was freed but she was pregnant.

American missionary couple Martin and Gracia Burnham have also suffered. "Mr Burnham is treated like a dog. His hands are tied during the day. At night, he is tied to a tree with a long leash," said Guillo.

Burnham's wife Gracia has been crying almost every night as she misses her family. "Mrs Burnham, like the others, is afraid whenever the rebels encounter the military because they have to run and hide for their lives," he said.

He said he saw the Abu Sayyaf behead a soldier and a civilian from Lantawan shortly after an encounter with troops. He said the Abu Sayyaf also showed the captives a videotape of a school burning in Balobo town and the beheading of 10 civilians.

Guillo was held hostage for four months and 12 days. He and some hostages, who were taken from Lantawan, Basilan, had escaped when the Abu Sayyaf clashed with members of the Army's 103rd Brigade, headed by now Presidential Security Group commander Col Hermogenes Esperon.

Also present in the programme were Nonette, Francisco, and Paquito Bayona, the parents and brother of Armando Bayona, the resort's security guard who was also beheaded by the Abu Sayyaf.

Paquito Bayona said he was appalled when he saw the body of the security guard in Zamboanga City.

"I could not recognise him. He had lost his two ears. His neck had become small. He had wounds all over his body. His other body parts were mutilated. I knew he suffered a lot," recalled Paquito.

"What happened was very painful for us. To confess, I wanted to take revenge. We all wanted revenge. But we don't have the means for that, or to ask for justice, for that matter," said Paquito, adding the entry of American soldiers in the war zone of Basilan gave them and other victims' families more hope.

"The Abu Sayyaf gave away the videotapes of the beheading to get money from their supporters. They made money out of Filipinos' lost lives," Paquito said.

Also present at the radio and TV programmes was Jovelyn Daquer, wife of a cook in Dos Palmas who was killed by the Abu Sayyaf when the family failed to pay ransom.

Daquer said she was devastated when her husband was taken hostage because she was six months pregnant and had three other young children to take care of.

"The Abu Sayyaf killed my husband because they considered him excess baggage," said Daquer, adding said she lost all hope to get her husband back alive because "the people who got him were the scum of the earth".

"My husband must have suffered a lot," Daquer said.

Paquito and Guillo urged Arroyo not to listen to her critics and to push through with the war-games to eradicate the Abu Sayyaf once and for all.

"People don't know what is really happening in Basilan, how it has turned into a kind of hell," said Paquito, adding that politicians and members of the militant groups have not yet suffered what the people in Basilan, Jolo, and Tawi-Tawi have.

Arroyo reiterated her call to other bandit and kidnap groups to stop their activities following the arrest last week of Pentagon kidnap gang leader Faisal Marohombsar.

Meanwhile, Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman claimed that a Muslim family gets $300 (P 15,000) for a son without combat experience to join the Abu Sayyaf in the mountains.

A family gets $500 (P 30,000) for a son with combat experience to join the Abu Sayyaf, Soliman said, adding: "For a poor family, that kind of money is hard to refuse."