If big talkers like Biazon can’t go get the Abus themselves – then let the Americans do it

Senator Rodolfo Biazon, mindful no doubt of his once having been an Armed Forces Chief of Staff and Marine general, has been fulminating on the radio and other public fora against President Macapagal-Arroyo letting the American Special Forces come in to mix into the "war" against the Abu Sayyaf.

Getting on his high horse, ex-General Pong Biazon (rhymes with pingpong), is fuming about the insult to our "sovereignty" and grumbling about the "deception" of using the Balikatan (shoulder-to-shoulder) joint military exercises between the Philippine and US military as an excuse for permitting American troops into the country.

Get real, Senator. You’ve been to Basilan yourself to investigate how the kidnapping, beheading, vicious Abus – ostensibly encircled by "a ring of steel" by our soldiers in a hospital and church compound, in Lamitan – blithely skipped through that cordon, dragging their victims along with them (with the exception of three, who deny they paid millions of pesos in ransom to "escape").

Biazon surely remembers that, losing patience (after millions of dollars of ransom had been paid to Commander Robot and his Abu gang), former President Erap Estrada had vowed of the Abu Sayyaf: "I will pulverize them!" Instead, the Abus outlasted poor Mr. Estrada.

No sooner had she been proclaimed President a year ago, GMA also promised, fuming at the depredations of the Abu Sayyaf – and their newest caper, the Dos Palmas May 21 mass abduction – "I will pulverize them!" Here we have 7,000 troops chasing all over Basilan after the elusive Abu bandits, and they’re not pulverized yet. Why, they’re not even winded.

Our loquacious Defense Secretary Angelo T. Reyes and our intrepid AFP Chief of Staff, Gen. Diomedio Villanueva, announced December 1, 2001, as their deadline to crush the Abus. December 1 came and went – but, sanamagan, the Abus were still there, laughing at us.

Then, Gen. Roy Cimatu, the chief of the military’s Southern Command, cheerily declared that the two American missionaries, Martin and Gracia Burnham, and Filipino nurse Deborah Yap, would be recovered from their Abu captors by Christmas. Well, Christmas came and went – but the unfortunate three kidnap victims are still in the clutches of their Islamic mujahideen captors.

Now comes Biazon, frothing at the mouth (abetted by former Senate President Jovito Salonga, and, to nobody’s surprise, Communist-turned-respectable partylist Congressman Satur Ocampo of Bayan Muna) about the Americans sneaking in with the connivance of the GMA government to have a go at the Abu Sayyaf.

At this stage, most Filipinos – with a few noisy exceptions – are so sick and tired of having the Abus insolently thumbing their dirty noses at us, that we’ll welcome the Americans anytime, anywhere, as long as they help us whip the asses of those terrorist, headhunting, priest-murdering, ransom-greedy Abus.

Biazon keeps on invoking the strictures of the "law", claiming that it prohibits American intrusion. If he can find the right "law", then, let the Senator take it and hit the Abus over the head with it – not the Yanks who’re only trying to rescue their two countrymen, the Burnhams, and give us a hand up from out of the pit of our national embarrassment.

Let me challenge Senator and ex-General Biazon with sporting wager: I’ll give him one week to go into Basilan personally to surround, and capture or kill Commander Khadaffy Janjalani and Abu Sabaya, and their Abu riff-raff. If he fails, then the deal is for him to allow the Americans to go into the bush with our already exhausted troops and flush those Islamic troublemakers out.

Fair?

We would do better in this benighted country if we had fewer loudmouths and more doers. Or fewer shakers and more movers. Biazon was a brave Marine brigade commander during his Davao days. Now he’s beginning to sound just like another boring Trapo.

* * *

As for me, and, I believe, most of our fellow Pinoys (with the notable exception of the usual anti-Americans, both professional or dilettante), the Americans are welcome to bring in the Green Berets, the Delta Force, the US Rangers, the Canine K-corps, the WACs and AWACs, the Marines, the US Navy Seals, sus, even the PX and Commissary commandos – just so we can flatten those Abus and their Osama bin Laden cohorts once and for all.

From the practical standpoint, the Yanks are bringing in the weaponry and transport equipment we need, even the ammunition we lack – even if only on a "loan" basis. They’re bringing in their own choppers – Blackhawks and Chinooks (and even paying for their own gasoline). They’re risking the lives of their fighting men in our jungles and mountains, which are – save for the freezing cold and snow in Tora Bora and the Hindu Kush – as inhospitable as the rugged terrain in Afghanistan.

So, as Walter Mondale once exclaimed (although he lost the election): "Where’s the beef?"

Proof that the Americans are bringing in the sinews of war is the fact that certain areas in the port and in the airport of General Santos City have been cordoned as "Off Limits" in the past week and a half. There has been a bit of activity in Gen San, whose Sarrangani Bay is so deep and blue that it approximates the features of Subic Bay almost identically.

The plan I’m told in official quarters is for the US Special Forces and other ground troops to come in, assist our military in tracking down and extirpating the Abu Sayyaf, while rolling up other elements of bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network. (There’s a genuine suspicion in Washington, DC that the Philippines might be a haven for ranking elements of al-Qaeda fleeing the destruction of their training camps and cave redoubts in Afghanistan. This was reported in TIME magazine as early as its December 24, 2001 issue.)

Here’s what TIME magazine said on page 43:

In the Philippines "AL QAEDA CONNECTION: The organization is said to have cells and training camps of its own already set up, plus longtime links to the Abu Sayyaf rebels fighting for an Islamic state . . . The camp jungles could provide good hideouts, and Islamic supporters abound . . . US POLICY: Bush boosted military aid to $19 million to fight Islamic insurgents, and officials tell TIME that 100 US Special-Ops commandos will deploy to train the Philippine Army in counterterror and battle tactics."

That was the Christmas issue of that international newsweekly. How can Biazon and company claim that the Americans are trying to sneak in? They’re so sneaky that they blab about their intentions all over their own press. Batu-bato sa langit, we can’t criticize them for that really. We do the same thing ourselves. In fact, too often we overdo it.

* * *

When we passed the EDSA Shrine yesterday, we found it ringed with Philippine Marines and brown-clad Philippine National Police constables, not to welcome demonstrators but to keep demonstrators out.

On ANC television, interviewed by talk-show host Cito Beltran (a son of our late friend and colleague, the formidable Louie Beltran), the National Capital Region commander Gen. Edgardo Aglipay clarified that the EDSA Shrine was private property belonging to the Archdiocese of Manila and that Monsignor "Soc" Villegas had requested that it be protected from intruders. Aglipay reminded listeners that during EDSA III and other demonstrations, some groups had damaged the Shrine – and, clearly, Msgr. Villegas and the hierarchy didn’t want this to be repeated this year.

Now we’ve come full circle. Last year, EDSA DOS and People Power dominated the Shrine. Now, the police and the Marines have been called in to keep People Power – or the mob, really – out of the EDSA Shrine. The next demonstrations, I guess, will have to be called Off-EDSA protests and rallies, just as some plays and musicals in New York (or Chicago and San Francisco) have to be dubbed Off-Broadway.

The PNP-Marine cordon, naturally, has frustrated Teddy Casiño and his Bayan gang, and other youth, cause-oriented, leftist and rightist groups no end. They want to make another "stand" at EDSA, this time against La Gloria, not against ex-Erap. I wish they’d fulminate and hurl their angry denunciations somewhere else, on some side-street or plaza, instead of insisting on gumming up our main traffic artery, EDSA, and tying the metropolis up in knots.

I had to chuckle over the way PNP General Egay Aglipay explained yesterday’s roping off of the EDSA Shrine. Looking at interviewer Beltran, he blandly said, if I recall (or this is the gist of it): "And besides, today is Baclaran Day. How can any demonstrators be allowed to block the traffic?" This conjured up, without Aglipay’s saying so, images of scores of thousands of stranded and furious devotees of Our Lady of Perpetual Help on their usual Wednesday pilgrimage to the Oblate Church in Baclaran cursing and calling maledictions down on any barricaders at EDSA.

What we don’t want to do is spark another "religious war." We’ve got more than we can handle already.

* * *

Malacañang is meddling shamelessly in the award of the multi-million-dollar contract for the supply of night-vision goggles for the Armed Forces. No sooner had the Armed Forces bidding and procurement committee processed the bids and was set to award the contract to the lowest and winning bidder, a French company, than Camp Aguinaldo got a telephone call from "somebody" high up in the Palace.

"Hold it," the Mystery Voice said. "We want you to give the contract to the following . . . " Alikabok, who had his ear to the keyhole, heard the Mystery Voice (he claims) distinctly name as the anointed choice, "ITT."

ITT means International Telephone and Telegraph Company – the giant American telecommunications firm which used to be run by Geneen and has its tentacles all over the globe. This time, however, the ITT bid to supply night-vision goggles is being handled by the Taiwanese (would you believe?). The Taiwanese lobby group didn’t even bother to enter the bidding process. It went straight to a famous influence-peddler who’s well-known to be very much "in" with the high muckamucks in Malacañang. Now, the DND and Armed Forces are being pestered to take the contract away from the French conglomerate (remember Thales or Thomson CSF, which I’ve also been attacking?) and give it to the American-Taiwanese ITT combine.

President Macapagal-Arroyo had better wise up to what’s going on right under her nose. Otherwise, it will be bruited around the globe that her government is "for sale" or "for rent" to the highest under-the-table bidder. That’s a reputation I’m sure she doesn’t want – and certainly can’t afford.

An old proverb cautions that you must "hold your enemies close" so you can keep an eye on them. In Madam Gloria’s case, she had better look out for her friends. They can do her more damage than her enemies.