Bookworm of Gensan reviews: Arlyn dela Cruz's A Lifetime of Freedom

Arlyn dela Cruz signs my copy of her book during its launch in 2012.

The Review

Before I read her book, A Lifetime of Freedom, I only knew Arlyn dela Cruz based on the news coverage she did for ABS-CBN and the news about her kidnapping (11 years ago) and subsequent release. I was also aware of the controversies surrounding her scoops on previous kidnappings like those of the Burnhams' and her own kidnapping.


Arlyn's book strikes me as a very personal one. Her book recounts her relationships with her family, former husbands, and daughters. It also focuses on her working relationships with her media colleagues, information sources, the military, the rebel and kidnap-for-ransom groups.It was also an account of her relationship with herself -- her vacillations over decisions made in life, love and work, her relationship with God and the Iglesia ni Kristo.

A Lifetime of Freedom is part memoir, part thriller, and part confessional. In a world ruled by perceptions, Arlyn's book disperses these perceptions one by one. On the perception that she was untouchable by rebels and kidnap-for-ransom groups, she offers her own eyewitness account of being held as a hostage. On the perception that she was the girlfriend/wife/lover of Khadaffy Janjalani, she gives a very plain answer: he courted and proposed marriage to me, but I said NO. On the perception that she was complicit in the rebel movement and that she earned millions from her scoops on the hostage incidents, she said, as a journalist, she cultivated and protected her information sources and that, yes, she indeed earned some money from her scoops, but not in the millions it was bruited about (she confesses she did not even have enough savings to pay her monthly electricity bill and that when held hostage, she had only P2,000 in cash).

Her book is an eye-opener: she shows the reader that the kidnapping incident she fell victim to was not a cut-and-dried situation, that it was a life and death situation from one moment to the next, that it felt like she fell into a gray limbo not knowing whom to trust anymore. Towards the end of her ordeal, Arlyn realizes that "only one could save me -- that He alone and no one else could save me, God the Father, merciful and loving." Thus, she began her journey of renewed faith in God and the Iglesia ni Kristo.

Finally, A Lifetime of Freedom is also a book filled with gratitude. Gratitude for her media colleagues and friends who offered her a lifeline; for the opportunities that came her way as a media practitioner; for the kindness of strangers and some of her captors, for her daughters who were beacons of light for her in those moments when she close to death and danger. For Arlyn, Mindanao, specially Sulu, will remain near and dear to her heart, in spite of her harrowing experience there .

Disclosure: 

The author of this review is a cousin of the husband of Ediborah Yap, a nurse, who together with Martin Burnham, a missionary, were killed during the rescue mission for the Dos Palma hostages in 2002.