A sad reminder of the fickleness of the mob - BY THE WAY by Max V. Soliven

The release by the Communist New People’s Army of a captured officer, Major Noel Buan, not only made banner headlines here. It rated the top photo slot, four co-lumns wide, on the front page of the International Herald Tribune.

There was the hostaged Army major, haggard from 21 months of captivity, his beard and hair grown long, hugging his wife Cielo, with Senator Loren Legarda to his left. It was a terrific, heart-warming photo opportunity.

It’s cause for rejoicing, of course, that Buan has finally been released unharmed. Another captive of the NPA, Police Chief Inspector Abelardo Martin (the police chief of Dolores town in Quezon province, in the same area) was not as fortunate. In early March, the NPA band holding Martin clashed in a firefight with pursuing troops and Martin was fatally wounded in the crossfire.

In the case of Major Buan, our joy surely must be tempered by the fact that the Arroyo government had to release more than a dozen Communist prisoners from military prison in exchange. Let’s not forget that trade-off. Another trade-off is that the government is now going to begin "peace talks" with the NPA and National Democratic Front – led by CPP Chief Joma Sison and the defrocked Fr. Luis Jalandoni – in some unnamed Scandinavian country, possibly Norway.

There’s no objection to still more peace talks (these have been ongoing for years) designed to bring to an end more than 30 years of Communist rebellion. My suggestion, though, is: Don’t hold your breath. We’ve been led down that same, futile garden path before by the Communist negotiators.

What this writer, and many others, object to is the idea of the proposed talks being held in either Oslo (Norway) or Stockholm (Sweden). Why on earth is our government discussing a homegrown rebellion in a foreign country? The fact that the two previous administrations, the Ramos and Estrada governments, foolishly consented to meeting Joma and his self-exiled cohorts abroad, doesn’t excuse President GMA from falling into the same trap.

Last week, in response to my column, President Arroyo assured me that she hadn’t agreed to meetings in Scandinavia for her own reasons. "I’m not bucking for a Nobel Peace Prize!" she pledged. I’ll take her at her word. But why Oslo or Stockholm then? Why give the outside world the false impression that our Republic is giving the NPA and NDF rebels the status of belligerency and an equal footing with our government negotiators?

The very notion that our government looks like it is the one suing for peace enables the Communists to boast that they have the Arroyo administration "on the ropes", and it’s the government that’s begging for peace. Why a foreign venue? So our official panelists can go on an overseas junket? Perish the thought!

Banish this very notion! It’s self-defeating, and it’s dangerous. Bring the "peace talks" home! Tell the NDF and NPA, Madam President, that "it’s here or never." If she blinks on that issue, then we’re sunk. Even our own people will begin believing the lie that the Reds are "winning", not losing.

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Today, Palm Sunday, is as good a time as any to ponder the painful fact that the public mood shifts very easily. From every church pulpit in the nation, the story will be retold of how Jesus Christ, our Savior, entered Jerusalem triumphantly riding on a donkey (the irreverent pun about "riding on an ass") to cheers of "Hallelujah" and the adulation of thousands who threw flowers at His feet, as He progressed, and hailed Him as "The Messiah"!

If a poll survey were, indeed, taken on that day Jesus would have gotten a much higher approval rating than Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. In commemoration of this jubilant day, we wave palms (palaspas) and jump for joy in our cathedrals.

The New Testament tale, of course, sees the Lord’s popularity sliding precipitously downwards as Holy Week grinds on – falling to its pathetic "worst" on Good Friday when, presumably, the same mobs who hailed Him as the Messiah or sought to elevate Him to kingship over the Jews began calling for His blood. "Crucify Him!" the mob shouted. And when the surprised Roman Governor Pontius Pilate, offering them a sop, asked them whom they would choose to set free, Christ or the gangster and hoodlum Barabbas, the crowd cried out even more loudly that they chose Barabbas.

In less than six days, Jesus had plummeted in the public’s esteem from hero to "villain." Just a timely reminder of the fickleness of the mob. If a nation bows to "mob rule", it becomes a reed shaken in the wind. For a mob can shift from supportive to ugly in just a few short days.

What we need is the rule of law, impartial justice, and a strong sense of responsibility which doesn’t waver even before a tempest of criticism. And, above all, a sense of nationhood.

It’s true enough, as the old Latin maxim goes: Vox populi, vox Dei. The voice of the people is the voice of God. But who speaks for the people? Certainly not the rabble-rousers. They’re the ones who sent Jesus Christ to Calvary to be nailed on the Cross.

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President Arroyo should know by now that a tough policy reaps results, not a wishy-washy, namby-pamby approach to a problem.

Just look at how the vicious Abu Sayyaf hastened pell-mell to "call off" its previously announced plan to behead American hostage Jeffrey Schilling before the 5 p.m. ultimatum it had declared last Thursday.

We mustn’t kid ourselves that the arrival of Schilling’s mother, Carol Schilling, who rushed here from California to plead for her son’s life, was what moved the Abus to refrain from decapitating their American captive. The Abu Sayyaf, particularly the "ideologue" Abu Sabaya who first voiced the threat to "gift" La Gloria on her birthday with poor Jeffrey’s head, are a merciless, hard-hearted bunch. Let’s not forget that these are the rapist-murderers who tortured a Catholic priest to death, ripping out his vital parts, raped and cut off the breasts of women victims, and made it a practice to kidnap young Muslim girls they fancied on the leering pretext that they wanted to "marry" them.

These are the wild beasts we must still suspect were responsible for those bomb blasts that devastated the Metro Manila shopping malls, blew up a passenger-packed bus in Quezon City, and blasted an LRT train, ripping apart or brutally maiming men, women and small children. (Why blame Erap, as is the fashion, or the military for those explosions, when everybody knows the New York World Trade Center "bomber" and terrorist, the Kuwaiti-born Ramzi Youssef, spent many months in Basilan, Visayas, and Manila, training specifically the Abu Sayyaf and Moro insurgents in bomb-making and detonation techniques?) Estrada can be charged for several other serious things, but surely not that.

President Arroyo proved she meant business when she declared "all-out war" and issued a "take no prisoners" directive as she sent the First Infantry "Tabak" Division, the Scout Rangers, and the Philippine Marines, to crush the insolent Abus. The Abus, particularly scruffy Sabaya, scampered for safety when the onslaught began in a frantic rout, no longer as swaggering and boastful as before. That’s the way to treat rebels, bandits, kidnappers and killers, Madam President: Give ’em a taste of their own medicine!

As for the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels, certainly, we welcome them back peacefully to the fold. But let’s not be naive or too trusting. We’ve been through that deceptive scenario before. Eternal vigilance is the price, to risk that old bromide, we must pay for liberty and peace of mind. Terrorists come in stealth, remember, hitting you when you least expect it.

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Japan may soon have a new Prime Minister. But it won’t be a new face. He’s bound to be former Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, whose habatsu or faction within the Diet (parliament) is the biggest; 101 legislators, 62 in the upper house and 39 in the lower house. In Hashimoto’s group is former Liberal Democratic Party Secretary General Hiromu Nonaka while Hashimoto himself is currently State Minister for Administrative Reforms.

The very unpopular Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori has finally agreed to resign – so the "change" is coming. Aside from Hashimoto, who’s the frontrunner today, other contenders used to be former Health and Welfare Minister Junichiro Koizumi, Diet Member Toshimitsu Motegi (who has now yielded to his faction leader, Hashimoto), Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Takeo Hiranuma and Taro Aso, State Minister for Economic and Fiscal Affairs.

When Hashimoto first became Prime Minister some years ago, I was very skeptical and suspicious of him, particularly because of his hardlining and chauvinistic speeches. He turned out to be a more agreeable leader than we had expected. As Mori’s unpopularity deepened, Hashimoto – this time more moderate in approach – has been rising in public acclaim. Let’s hope the LDP manages the tricky transition more deftly than its stumble-bum initiatives of the past year.

We have to watch developments in Tokyo closely, since our economic recovery is closely intertwined with that of Japan’s. The Japanese economy is in the doldrums, its banks in extremis. On March 14, the Fitch Inc. rating service, for instance, disclosed it may downgrade 19 Japanese banks, with several reportedly in near-insolvency. Foreign investors, who now represent 40 percent of the trading volume in Tokyo’s Stock Exchange, are on tenterhooks, eager to find out how the LDP will go, or whether, by some "coup" the party which ruled for more than half a century (with a brief hiatus in 1993) might be overthrown by a coalition of opposition activists.

The Japanese, on the other hand, continue to think and move, not as individuals, but within the context of a group or "team." The method they use for attaining consensus in a group is known as matomari or "adjustment."

Indeed, Japan will never produce a Napoleon Bonaparte, an Adolf Hitler, or even a Lee Kuan Yew, or a Suharto, for even her so-called "leaders" are cogs in the machine which we once so glibly called "Japan Incorporated." Japan Inc. may be listing badly, but the style of leadership has not changed. Hashimoto, for all his peppery personality, will be a "consensus man."

So, on with the show! It’s part Kabuki, part Bunraku (puppet show) and part Takarazuka. Just to demonstrate how deceptive the Japanese scene may be, in the Kabuki, men (onnagata) play the women’s roles; in the Takarazuka, the popular all-girl revue dating back to 1926, women pay the heroic men’s parts. Behind all this razzle-dazzle lies the real Japan. I’ve studied them half my life – and I’m still guessing.