Uncle Sam offers help - SKETCHES by Ana Marie Pamintuan

The United States isn’t siccing its troops or unleashing its missiles on the Abu Sayyaf so everyone should simmer down. After Vietnam, I don’t think the Americans are in the mood to get entangled in another guerrilla war, ever.

What the United States can do – and which no one has denied, if you can get past all the diplomatic gobbledygook – is to provide assistance to the Armed Forces of the Philippines in night operations and reconnaissance. Let’s admit it: we have the most pitifully equipped armed forces in this part of the world, and we can use sa-tellite technology, night patrol equipment and all that stuff we see only in Hollywood movies.

The AFP also needs basic stuff – fast patrol craft with gasoline, helicopters and fighter jets with enough aviation fuel, modern firepower for ground troops. But we’ve known this since the birth of the Abu Sayyaf a decade ago, and we didn’t do anything about it. The only thing that gets regularly upgraded in the AFP is its shopping list, which is more of a wish list than anything else.

So now, five days after Abu Sayyaf terrorists kidnapped those tourists in Palawan, the government still isn’t sure where the kidnappers and hostages are. How can motorized bancas give a national army the slip in the Sulu Sea so easily? Only if the pursuers are in boats propelled manually. Okay, let’s be kind – the Sulu Sea is quite big and the bandits can move under cover of darkness. And that’s precisely why we can use assistance in night patrols and reconnaissance.

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Malacañang had to emphasize yesterday that it was not calling in American troops to do the job of the Armed Forces. The government need not be defensive about it. If the Americans are offering help, let’s take it. All they’re offering is assistance in information and intelligence gathering. They’re not going to do the job for the AFP; I’m sure they don’t want to do the job for the AFP.

Like everyone else, Americans don’t re-lish seeing their boys returning home in body bags. The few times the Americans have intervened in foreign conflicts since Vietnam, they have limited their operations to surgical strikes where danger to ground troops is minimal. And surgical strikes are impossible in the hinterlands of Basilan and Sulu. There are too many civilians, and you can’t tell them from the bandits. Even while chugging along the Sulu Sea, I’m sure the kidnappers made sure their hostages would serve as human shields. As some officials have already warned, any rescue is bound to result in casualties.

Despite the warning, the rescue will have to be undertaken as soon as possible. One positive result of the protracted hostage crisis last year was that the nation got painful lessons on how not to handle a hostage situation. Now the same military generals are in charge of the latest crisis, and this time they don’t have a bunch of negotiators appeasing the Abu Sayyaf with multimillion-dollar ransom payments, sacks of rice and photo calls with action star Robin Padilla. Let’s hope the government gets it right this time.

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Meanwhile, the Philippine National Police filed kidnapping charges yesterday against Abu Sayyaf spokesman Abu Ahmad Salayuddi, a.k.a. Abu Sabaya, and 22 others for the abduction of the tourists in Palawan.

Don’t laugh – not so loud anyway. I see it as the PNP’s way of reminding the government that kidnapping is, after all, also a law enforcement problem that falls under the jurisdiction of the police. Some PNP officials are grumbling that they are being kept out of the picture by the AFP. The grumbling cops can look at it this way: if the crisis is resolved without a hitch, then of course the AFP reaps all the glory. Give it to the soldiers – it’s their lives on the line. But if anything goes awry, which I think is bound to happen, the AFP gets all the flak, including a likely congressional investigation for the way intelligence funds are spent.

It won’t hurt though if the AFP improved its coordination with the PNP in this operation. They are, after all, fighting a common enemy here.

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While our troops were pursuing the Abu Sayyaf, the bicameral conference committee finally approved last night the Power Sector Reform Bill. This will be seen as a victory for President Arroyo, but I’m not sure if it will mean better services for the public. The privatization of water services in Metro Manila has had mixed results so far. The service areas of Maynilad will be waterless starting tonight until Monday. That’s the second such water interruption in many of these areas within a year. The only improvement is that this time the public was given ample warning.

I live in the outskirts of Metro Manila, where we often still get the early edition (I call it the boondocks edition) of newspapers, so we still don’t get water from Maynilad. Learning about these water interruptions makes me feel blessed, even if our own water supply is also inadequate.

But there’s no escaping the abandoned road diggings of Maynilad. One narrow street less than half a kilometer long that is widely used as a short cut in Parañaque has been closed for months now because of a Maynilad digging that has been abandoned. Why is the public subjected to this misery? Consider what will happen when classes open and the monsoon season starts. Those abandoned diggings are going to aggravate flooding and traffic.

My chief concern about the privatization of the National Power Corp., which is now a sure thing with the passage of the power reform bill, is whether we can be assured of a steady supply of electricity at reasonable prices. If those who will take over Napocor will do to the power supply what Maynilad is doing to water services, Malacañang can still rethink this latest privatization scheme. 

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I was told that because of the impending water interruption, drums and other big water containers are now in short supply. Better keep those containers – at the rate Maynilad is going, there might be more such water interruptions in the coming months.

How can people survive without this most basic commodity? We have no water, no steady power supply. In Metro Manila we have too much traffic and garbage and soon, massive flooding.

We can’t protect our tourist spots and we can’t catch bandits even if we send our entire armed forces after them. It takes us an eternity to count votes. How do we expect investors to come here? GDP growth of 2.5 percent in the first quarter was lower than in the previous year, but it’s a miracle that the economy is growing at all.

We sure can use some help. We have been getting help – loans, aid, technical support, health care from foreign governments and multilateral financing institutions. Last year we even sought assistance from Libya, an exporter of terrorism, in dealing with Ghalib "Commander Robot" Andang, et al. Why not some form of American support against the Abu Sayyaf? Let’s all lighten up. Those US Super Stallion helicopters and fighter jets just got stranded here on their way to Okinawa. American soldiers aren’t invading Basilan or Sulu.