Here they come again: What happened to ‘all-out’ war on the Abu Sayyaf? - BY THE WAY by Max V. Soliven

Now that it’s confirmed – out of their own big mouths and those of their pathetic captives’ – that it was the Abu Sayyaf bandits who snatched three Americans and 13 Filipinos out of the Dos Palmas island resort early Sunday morning, let’s not be suckered a second time around.

If we even think of "negotiating" with the hoodlum-kidnappers (as they’ve obviously compelled their American hostages to plead, so we’ll get all weak-kneed and mushy about it), we’ll suffer the same humiliation all over again. The Abus, flush with the ransom money they collected (while the Estrada government was bleating it wasn’t "talking ransom"), are doing a repeat number – grab a few whites, they sneer, and the Manila government will cave in and crawl, begging them to release their captives unharmed.

The present incident is the bitter fruit of our supine and toothless policy with regard to last year’s Sipadan "hostages" – the insolent Abu chieftains got away with the cash, we ended up with crud on our faces, while Libya’s meddling strongman Muammar Ghadaffi waltzed off with the credit and the applause of the Germans and the French. (And, for Pete’s sake, don’t bring back Robert Aventajado).

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo must learn from the pratfall of her ill-starred predecessor and refuse to dicker, no matter what, with the arrogant Abu Sayyaf pirates. Of course, we must make every effort to locate and rescue the captives, but we must never again permit those ruthless bandits (as they did in the past) to use them as "shields" and bargaining chips. It sounds heartless, I’m sorry, but it’s the only way. Give ’em the gun. As the late Ramon Magsaysay repeatedly declared when he fought and crushed the Communist Huk Movement: Find ’em, fool ’em, fight ’em, finish ’em!

As a matter of fact, what happened to the "all-out war" Commander-in-Chief GMA launched against the Abus last April in Sulu ("Pupulbusin ko sila!" she had vowed). She had dispatched Armed Forces Chief of Staff Diomedio Villanueva, no less, to "get" that cheeky Abu Commander Abu Sabaya, in answer to his brag that he would send her then hostaged American Jeffrey Schilling’s head as a birthday gift. GMA’s wrath was a wonder to behold. Her Army troops, Marines, and PNP, indeed, had plucked Schilling safely out of the enemy’s lair; but now, Commander Abu Sabaya, uncaught and unchastened, has grabbed himself three more Americans. The late General Douglas MacArthur of "I shall return" vintage, in his second most famous statement, asserted: "There is no substitute for victory." We can never claim "victory" unless we land Abu Sabaya, Khadaffi Janjalani (brother of the Abus’ slain founder, Abdurajak Abubakar Janjalani), and the other Abu war-chiefs. They got away from the armed forces, quite obviously, because now they’re the ones holding the "new" hostages from Palawan.

And where, oh where, is that other high-profile villain, Commander "Robot" alias Ghalib Andang? Will he surface, too, grinning merrily and thumbing his dirty nose at the government?

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Everybody will be cluck-clucking like mad today, I’m certain, and decrying the "death" of tourism to the Philippines.

Never mind the tourists! Of course we’ll miss them, their happy smiles, and most of all their happily-dispensed dollars and other valuta. The real blow is not to our international image and prestige (shucks, there are bloody incidents everywhere, suicide bombs and firefights in Israel and Palestine, riots in Oldham, England, etc.) What dismays me is the breakdown of law and order, and respect for authority and government enforcement in our country.

We’ve just had the Commission on Elections bungle the elections (the kuro-kuro is that certain Comelec commissioners deliberately sabotaged the process, a suspicion that plays well in the current climate of paranoia and discontent). We’ve had politicians shooting directly at each other. We’ve had the Communist New People’s Army (NPA) slaughtering candidates, while we’re blissfully talking "peace" with them in faraway Oslo. We’ve seen Moro rebels and bandits on the rampage, while our government has been trying to strike a peace deal with them in Kuala Lumpur.

If the government now looks punch-drunk, it’s because the punches are coming at the Arroyo administration not merely from La Gloria’s enemies but, with even worse venom, from her own self-proclaimed "friends" and supporters. The vociferous Bayan Muna attacks her for being too "kind" to Estrada, the Erap-supporters assail her for being "harsh" on the same ex-President, her Civil Society blowhards snarl that if GMA insists on pushing through the "power bill", they’ll mount another People Power against her. Sanamagan! What do we have here? The rule of the mob? After EDSA DOS, we had a reverse EDSA TRES. Now those snobs and nabobs (whom GMA thought were on her side) are huffing and puffing that they’ll stage EDSA KUWATRO against the administration, too?

We’re beginning to look worse than Indonesia – and, as Gus Dur himself would put it (as he plays his last "blind man’s bluff"), that would be saying a lot!

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Incidentally, the Dos Palmas resort was supposed to be "safe". It’s situated only ten minutes’ helicopter ride from the Palawan capital of Puerto Princesa, not some remote bay. It’s only an hour by bus and a short banca hop away.

The Abu gang came out of the sea aboard a swift banca equipped with three high-speed outboard motors. The bandits were attired in Army uniforms to mislead the unsuspecting security guards who, caught by surprise, surrendered without a fight. They got away with 20 hostages (those who were in the seaside cottages on stilts), and would have taken more but their "boat" could only accommodate 20 prisoners along with the Abu raiders themselves.

Why couldn’t the Navy, the Coast Guard and the Air Force catch them? You’ve got the answer even before the question is asked: Our Navy doesn’t have fast patrol and pursuit craft, even less our leaky Coast Guard. I heard some radio commentators carping about the PAF. Why couldn’t even our planes overhaul the fleeing kidnappers? The radio broadcasters cracked: "Doesn’t the Air Force have gasoline for its aircraft?" You bet. No gasoline. Even worse than that, alas – no insult intended to our intrepid and gallant airmen – no airplanes.

Susmariosep! We call ourselves a Republic, yet we force our soldiers to go into combat with worn-out weapons and tin-can armored cars, we defend our archipelago of 7,100 islands with a Navy that counts mostly relics from the mothball fleet of the United States and second-hand "peacock" class vessels bought from Hong Kong, we humiliate our aviators by giving them only ancient OV-10 Broncos, gunless S-211s, a few obsolete F-5s, and overworked helicopters.

The Abus, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, NPA, and other troublemakers know all these and give us the runaround. That bandit "banca" easily sped away from any Naval or Coast Guard vessel (if any were in the vicinity) at over 25 knots! The "enemy" knows, full well, our armed forces’ lack of response capability.

What happened to the P7.8 billion AFP "modernization" fund paid to the Ramos administration by the real estate buyers of the Fort Bonifacio property? Perhaps ex-President Fidel V. Ramos, if he’s an ally of President Arroyo, will finally help her find it – and USE IT!

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Columnists, I know (mea culpa), tend to sound like perpetual scolds. As a former President once snapped back: "If those critics are so smart, how come they don’t run for the Presidency and become President?" (He left unsaid, possibly: "How come a dumb-dumb like me became President instead?")

I’m supposed to be on "leave" from The STAR. But I had to come out today with this single column, then it’s back to my short vacation. But I felt I had to say: Mrs. President, go do your job, and, as the US Navy hero Farragut declared: "Damn the torpedoes!" This is a crisis and we need heroes and heroines. In this solemn hour.

I’ll say it again. The President has the loneliest job in the country. And she must be lonely. She must not be the smiling "Madam Gloria", friendly to everybody, but must be an unrelenting leader who has no friends, relatives or cronies. (Erap, alas, for all his charms, had too many of each.)

Stop listening to those who claim they supported you, who "rallied" at EDSA DOS and allegedly put you in office, who backstop you kuno in the military or police! Push away the solicitous advice of former Presidents, too, whether they’re your idols, pals, or your enemies. You’re alone up there on the peak of Mount Olympus. Heed only your instincts and the voice of God through your own conscience. Easier said than done, it’s admitted: But you asked for the job and the Filipino people (and Fate, don’t forget) gave it to you.

As for peace and order: Spare no one. Demolish the warlord armies. Go after the pirates, and the local politicians (they’re the ones who stir up trouble and subversion in Mindanao). It is better to be feared, though this may sound cruel and callous, than loved. Love dies. Fear lasts. The most important thing is that the evil and conniving should fear the remorseless hand of justice.

I saw the President in that interview over Cable News Network (CNN). When asked what was her aim, she disappointingly advanced the motherhood statement: "To fight poverty." Every Chief Executive, I remember, pledged to fight po-verty, but our people became poorer than ever before. (Some big shots defeated their own "poverty", of course, and became very wealthy). The idea is to fight ignorance. The President must, first and foremost, strive to educate our people. It is ignorance, gullibility and the propensity to be cozened, bribed, or cowed by force that keep our people in servitude and chains. An educated citizenry knows its rights and duties, and therefore forges forward to prosperity.

There is no magic formula. GMA must acquire the magic, however, of leadership, toughness, courage, determination, and persistence. What is she today? Is she the Biblical "reed shaken in the wind", or a pillar of flame leading us resolutely through the darkness to the Promised Land?

I’m a hopeless romantic, perhaps. But God bestows, I firmly believe, on leaders who dare the wisdom, fortitude and abi-lity to inspire that will guide them to the summit, surrounded by a host of mighty Angels for their protection. Manuel Quezon, for all his faults and conceits, had such a gift, as had Ramon Magsaysay, although he didn’t have enough time (before his death on a mountaintop in Cebu) to complete his pilgrimage.

GMA has been given a magnificent challenge. Let her forget the year 2004. To be a great President in the next two years, and in that period alone, is all that matters. She must not seek any reward or gratitude for her stewardship of the highest position within the gift of the Filipino nation. Attaining the Presidency is, by itself, the guerdon she has already gained. Let her, then, acquit herself nobly and well in that sacred trust.

This is a moment in history that may never come for her again.

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THE ROVING EYE . . . One of the luckiest men in the world at this time is Secretary Pantaleon "Bebot" Alvarez of the Department of Transportation and Communications. We had breakfast yesterday, and he told me, with a tremor in his voice, that his wife Emily, their three daughters and their son, a young boy, had been scheduled to spend the weekend in Dos Palmas island resort. Last Friday morning, at the very last minute, he had cancelled their airplane flight and their reservations in the Palawan resort and sent them to Boracay instead. Bebot, who is the former congressman from Davao del Norte, had suddenly been struck by the thought last Friday that the island resort was "unknown" to them, so he, on the spur of the moment, diverted his family to Boracay. What a coup it would have been for the Abu Sayyaf to have kidnapped the family of a Cabinet member of such prominence and influence! . . . It’s clear, from the embarrassment caused by the Abu raid, that our military and Coast Guard haven’t the equipment they need to protect our citizenry. Alvarez, since the Coast Guard is under the DOTC, pledges to mobilize funds and grants to upgrade Coast Guard capability. The President and our "politicians" must, once and for all, provide a budget for our Philippine Navy that will enable it to patrol our waters and seize pirates, bandits, rebels, and foreign intruders who ply our seas. What about the fast patrol craft we’ve been yakking about for years? Our sailors and soldiers have the guts and the glory, but not the machines . . . Indeed, "piracy" has been on the rise in nearby waters, including the most dangerous but most vital sealanes of all, the Straits of Malacca. There have been wire reports on an epidemic of attacks between the Indonesian island of Sumatra on one side and Malaysia and Singapore on the other. A third of the 68 pirate attacks reported during the first three months of this year were off the Indonesian archipelago of 13,000 islands. This is according to the International Maritime Bureau, the Malaysia-based watchdog group. Pirate attacks, this agency said, reached an all-time high of 269 last year (Year 2000), up 60 percent from the previous year. More than a third of the world’s ocean trade, the Associated Press reported two weeks ago, passes through our Southeast Asian waters, including those off Palawan. This includes the Straits of Malacca and other shipping lanes that lie along the coasts of Indonesia and the Philippines, "both poor and rife with turmoil," AP said. Entire cargo ships are being blocked, boarded and ransacked by those pirates, the dispatch added . . . The PAF’s search for the "escape" boats of the Abus (who have apparently split up into three groups) is hampered by our lack of proper aircraft. We must get the Air Force speedier planes, equipped with night-flying and night-detection equipment, maritime patrol capabilities, and enough weaponry to cope with any situation. As it is, the PAF 570 Composite Tactical Wing (based in the Palawan area) and the 3rd Tactical Wing based in the Edwin Anderson air base in Zamboanga are involved in the search, but they lack the aircraft (even with their outdated Nomads, S-211s, and two OV-10s). The Western Command under Admiral Rodolfo Rabago is in over-all command, but PAF Commanding General Benjamin Defensor and Southcom Commander, General Greg Camiling are also collaborating on the spot . . . It’s good that the President has placed a P100-million "bounty" on the heads of the Abu Sayyaf kidnappers. This means: No ransom, but a price on the heads of the bandits. Money talks in that part of the world. But let’s not sit back and wait for cupidity or avarice to do what should be done: We must zap the pirates where they are – and where they came from, too. In the strife-torn south, only the Lex Talionis seems to prevail: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth! Peaceful negotiations? Rubbish. The Abus offer only one peace: That of the grave.