Cebu: All-out war vs NPAs not a shooting war!

Thanks to a very alert Scotland Yard, they were able to uncover a sinister plot obviously hatched by cells of the dreaded al-Qaeda which would have exploded US-bound airliners as they fly over US territory. That foiled plan may have been executed last Aug.11, two months before the fifth anniversary of 9/11. No doubt this is another huge setback for the aviation industry, where passengers going on international flights used to come to the airport only an hour before their flights but which was later extended to two hours. But as of last week, airline companies began advising their passengers to come four hours before their flights.

This foiled plot reminded everyone of what happened to a PAL plane bound for Japan from Manila and Cebu with Ramzi Yousef (who masterminded the first bombing of the World Trade Center) on board. His "liquid bomb" exploded alright and killed a Japanese passenger, but unfortunately, according to a National Geographic Channel story, the seat was moved further away from the fuel tank and the PAL plane landed safely in Okinawa.

The latest ordinance in airports today is that hand-carry luggage would no longer be allowed on the plane with the passenger. This is especially inconvenient for travelers like me who only bring a hand-carried bag for those short hops to Manila and back to Cebu. With airline travel becoming extremely dangerous because Osama bin Laden and Ramzi Yousef found a more sinister use for those jumbo jets… maybe airline travel would return to smaller planes, which pose lesser risks as flying bombs.

I was just thinking what would happen to mega planes like the Airbus 380? Have they become obsolete before they could even enter the airline service because their huge size is a terrorist risk? Indeed, jumbo jets have now become a hassle and a liability for airlines. But it’s still too expensive for passengers to fly on board executive jets. Well, as they say, necessity is the mother of invention… I’m sure someone will find a better way to assure passengers of their safety, that their flight won’t become a terrorist bomb!

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A week after we wrote the article entitled "CPP, Bayan, Hamas, Hezbollah: No difference?" I’m still getting numerous comments about this issue with people in full accord of what we wrote. Perhaps, because of the uncanny similarity among all these terror organizations in their ways, except that the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its "above-ground" ally Bayan had nothing to do with religion.

However, while the Communist Party doesn’t have any religious ideology, we have known for years they have infiltrated the formation houses of Catholic organizations and produced priests and nuns whose real vocation is more political than spiritual. This is why we see a lot of angry nuns, priests and even bishops marching hand in hand in the streets with red flags and red banners and arms linked with members of leftist organizations far and away from their real mission in life, which is to save souls.

Today, there are still many Catholic schools that espouse the communist ideology and one of them I’m afraid is the De La Salle University (DSLU). Here’s a commentary e-mailed to me about the article we wrote:

"Mr. Avila… Most parents may not have realized that Dr. Antonio Contreras, a dean of the College of Liberal Arts of La Salle, is a product of the University of the Philippines together with the other faculty that he brought into the school. He may not admit it, but he totally sympathizes with the political ideology of the political organizations you mentioned in your article based on his personal interactions with students and faculty of La Salle. Have the communists infiltrated private institutions like DLSU? 

"Many parents are very much concerned about it because these parents of today are the same people who rejected and fought against communism in the 60s and 70s. I know of some parents who have transferred their children to other schools (even abroad) to protect their young kids from the possible subtle communist conversion. I hope your column will continuously expose the activities of the communist groups operating in private schools in the Philippines under the guise of mere ‘political organizations.’" Name withheld 

Well, there you are! Just listening to Mr. Contreras, who represented DSLU on Dong Puno’s show, made me decide that instant not to send my son JV to school there because their professor is openly supporting an organization that believes in a godless ideology! While I never had a chance to study in DSLU, my late father, Atty. Jesus S. Avila, studied there for a while. But his only brother, Benjamin Avila, graduated in La Salle and was their star athlete in track and field, swimming and basketball before World War II.

I never met my uncle because he died in the sinking of the S.S. Corregidor on Dec. 17, 1941 because he brought the basketball team from the University of Southern Philippines (USP) to play an exhibition match with his Alma Mater that week… and he had to take the last boat out of Manila to Cebu, but a mine sank the S.S. Corregidor off Corregidor Island.

Again, let me reiterate Cebu Gov. Gwendolyn F. Garcia’s blueprint for her all-out war against communist terrorists and it is, first of all, to deny the New People’s Army (NPA) a friendly neighborhood or a safe haven to hide. This means that by the end of August, all barangay captains should declare to the governor with confidence that they are no longer "influenced" by the NPA.

As of last week, I met our good friend, former secretary to then Cebu City Mayor Sergio "Serging" Osmeña and now Barangay Captain Ribomaphil "Dodong" Holganza in Baud, Bantayan Island and he was the first barangay captain in Cebu province to declare that the NPAs will not find any friends in his barangay. By month’s end, we shall see more of his kind.

Clearly, the governor’s call for all-out war isn’t really a shooting war. After all, as of last count, the Central Command (CentCom) says that there are only a little over 50 armed NPA regulars prowling the province of Cebu. Now with this new development, I’m sure that the NPAs have either left the province of Cebu or have gone very, very deep underground. So now, can we hear it from the other governors and mayors to echo the call of Gov. Garcia? It’s about time they have the balls to do so!

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For e-mail responses to this article, write to [email protected]. Bobit Avila’s columns in The Freeman can also be accessed through The Philippine STAR website (www.philstar.com). He also hosts a weekly talkshow, "Straight from the Sky," shown every Monday, 8 p.m., only in Metro Cebu on Channel 15 of SkyCable. Bobit’s columns can be accessed at www.shootinginsidecebu.blogspot.com.