Our top general sneaking off to Israel would send wrong signal to all Muslims

Let the good times roll! That’s what I’d say about the present rash of good news items about the Philippines circulating around the world.

In its BizAsia segment, globe-girdling Cable News Network (CNN) reported that one of "the bright spots in Asia" is the Philippines where the economy grew 3.4 percent in 2001 thanks to gains in agriculture and business. Why, even CNN Anchorman Andrew Stevens looked impressed with what he was announcing, not astonished.

British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) also reported the same upsurge here.

The good news appeared in The International Herald Tribune, too (last Friday, February 1), as well as in the Financial Times of London and The Asian Wall Street Journal.

Bloomberg News, which disseminates such information internationally by Cable TV and print media stated: "The Philippine economy expanded more strongly than expected in the fourth quarter, the government said Thursday, capping a year of growth that outpaced most of the country’s neighbors as falling interest rates and rising farm incomes spurred consumer spending."

"Stocks surged to a six-month high after the government and gross domestic product grew 1 percent from the third quarter, topping expectations of a 0.7 percent increase. The economy grew by 3.4 percent in 2001, and the government expects growth of as much as 4.5 percent this year."

Those reports are worth much more than the $1-million spent by the GMA administration (and its "secret" donors) on Burston-Mastellar or any high-placed US public relations agency.

Didn’t I tell you that the Filipino is like Ivory Soap? It floats. If we only shrugged off our spirit of negativism, dakdak, and savage verbal infighting, we’d not only float we’d soar.

This is not to say that there’s no widespread poverty and still many ills to address, like abysmal ignorance and illiteracy. We are afflicted with a poor educational system, (what Britain’s Margaret Thatcher stressed to President Macapagal-Arroyo, her apprentice "Iron Lady", when they met in London, was that aside from jobs and productivity, the Philippines must pursue "quality education". Hear ye, hear ye!)

But this weekend’s good reviews of our GDP and farm performance should inspire us to strive harder. Our greatest enemy, as it’s always been known, is ourselves. If we learned to work together and care for each other, who knows to what heights we could aspire?

* * *

President GMA’s visit to New York may have been eclipsed in that bustling and over-competitive metropolis by the presence at the same World Economic Forum of almost 3,000 heads of state, financial and economic heavy-hitters, business wizards and gilt-edged executives, etc., all ego-tripping and busting their guts to grab headlines, but GMA has been striking the right note in her interviews, like the one given CNN.

The President underscored that the Philippines has long been waging a fight against terrorism, but now we’re heartened by having been joined in the fight by allies like the US and other nations.

In this context, let’s stop carping about the arrival of US troops to buttress our effort against the Abu Sayyaf and other terrorist groups in our country. We don’t know whether the American "reinforcements" will be effective against the clever, jungle-savvy, ruthless Abus and their Islamic fundamentalist brethren, or against the deeply-imbedded al-Qaeda network here: but every little bit helps.

If anything, the presence of those elite US units like the Green Berets, the US Marines, and their support echelons will "challenge" our owned Armed Forces to show their stuff, instead of slacking off in the relentless pursuit of the Abu Sayyaf Group and other Moro insurgent troublemakers. There’s nothing like good old-fashioned rivalry to goad men to greater effort and get the adrenaline flowing. Sorry to have to use the term "rivalry." They’re supposed to be operating jointly – in tandem with each other. Yet, let’s face it – they’ll compete. That’s the way of war – and the way of the world.

* * *

The great German novelist Erich Maria Remarque, in his classic, All Quiet on the Western Front (1929), put it very eloquently: "We are soldiers. It is a great brotherhood, which adds to the good fellowship of the folk-song, of the feeling of solidarity of convicts, and of the desperate loyalty to one another of men condemned to death, to a condition of life arising out of the midst of danger, out of the tension and forlorness of death."

I can’t say the same of some of their officers, but of the Filipino foot-soldier, our own "grunts", I can only declare in admiration: Poorly-equipped, underpaid, ill-shod, under-appreciated, they’ve fought bravely and patiently in all other wars, endured privation and pain. What more can be said of them? They’ve earned more than glory – the undying thanks of a nation constantly at "war."

Since Independence and the advent of the Republic, if you come to think of it, our boys have never stopped fighting.

Let’s hear from another famous writer, the American Norman Mailer, in his 1948 novel, also a classic, The Naked and the Dead.

Wrote Mailer: "We have . . . the worst individual fighting soldiers of any big power. Or at least in their natural state they are. They’re comparatively wealthy, they’re spoiled, and as Americans they share, most of them, the peculiar manifestation of our democracy. They have an exaggerated idea of the rights due themselves as individuals and no idea at all of the rights due others. It’s the reverse of the peasant, and I’ll tell you right now, it’s the peasant who makes the soldier."

That last crack about the peasant is true, perhaps, of all armies. What about our so-called "cavaliers", the officer corps from the Philippine Military Academy? The PMA has produced brave and gallant soldiers who’ve distinguished themselves in war and peace. However, our military academy has produced bums and unworthies as well.

I worry sometimes about what sort of officers is the product of a culture of brutal hazing, which is the unfortunate trademark of the PMA, no matter what they say about hazing producing men and a spirit of comradeship. Why have so many plebes died in vain? This is not discipline; this is savagery. If bestial methods continue to be utilized to "separate the men from the boys" in our Academy, what the PMA turns out won’t be men – but beasts. Are we surprised then at the ugly tales we hear of "corruption", of "selling out" to the Abu bandits, of a "modus vivendi" between crooked officers and the ransom-rich rebels?

Let me say that many in Mindanao’s civilian population, both Christian and Muslim – rightly or wrongly – believe those stories. The Abu Sayyaf, for their part, have had no compunction about "kissing-and-telling", too.

Some of my sources from Lamitan (not Father Nacorda) swear to the veracity of their report: Two of them spotted a band of Abu Sayyaf, with several hostages in tow, some months ago, passing an Army checkpoint in broad daylight. The Abus waved at the Army sentries manning the checkpoint, and the soldiers waved back at them. What’s this? A war or a waving contest? No exchange of fire? Aren’t the Armed Forces given a budget of P1-million a day for ammunition? In that incident, not even GMA’s "isang bala ka lang" slogan wasn’t invoked. Not one bullet was fired!

* * *

I wonder why the Philippine Army is, all of a sudden, so enthusiastic about UAV’s or Unmanned Aerial (Surveillance) Vehicles?

I checked with my own military "experts" – men of long experience – and their reaction was: Why experiment with expensive new gadgetry when our Armed Forces have, in their own inventory, such aircraft as the F-27 which could easily be fitted with surveillance sensors at a significantly lower cost? The F-27 would be far superior to any UAV in many respects, particularly in our Philippine setting.

Incidentally, I find it exceedingly strange that it is the Army which is pushing for the procurement of UAV’s, or their "assembly" here from foreign and local parts, when the Philippine Air Force and the Philippine Navy have, in fact, been evaluating surveillance equipment for many years and are not infatuated with this so-called UAV.

The second disturbing factor is that the Army has been somewhat "discreet" (secretive?) about the source of their proposed UAV. Moreover, the Armed Forces brought in a "demo system" of the UAV from its "foreign source" last July – at our own military’s expense, mind you – (without the benefit of bidding, canvassing, or whatever comparative actions might be transparent), and conducted two demonstrations.

Alas, the two demonstrations – one in Zamboanga and the other in Mindoro – were complete flops. The Zambo model crashed. The second demo, the fiasco in Mindoro, took place because the supplying firm "asked" for a second chance. It failed, too.

Two debacles in a row – and they’re still "considering" buying that UAV thingamajig?

The main argument being advanced for the use of a UAV is its removal of the human factor in surveillance. From the security of altitude, the argument goes, a UAV can transmit critical battleground information to command centers and help reshape tactics and strategy, without exposing a single pilot or operator to danger.

Sounds great, doesn’t it? However, in reality, a UAV has many serious drawbacks. For one, its small airframe can, at best, only carry a small camera or equivalent photographic equipment. Such a video camera or a forward-looking infrared (FLIR) camera for night-imaging will work only under clear sky conditions. Its main menu is data-link, which allows it to transmit images to ground operators. Unfortunately, data-link is made possible only in its "sensor suite", which happens to be the projected UAV’s most expensive item. Considering the extreme sensitivity of the "sensor suit", it would be damaged with every jar or bumpy landing. In short, UAV’s require smooth landing on very level and well-prepared surfaces, something unavailable in the fields of Mindanao, and even military airfields.

UAVs, moreover, lack flexibility. They cannot carry additional sensors as would a manned aircraft. They don’t, from observation, have the desired endurance or reach for maritime reconnaissance. They can’t be armed to "defend" themselves.

The "suppliers" of the UAV’s which crashed in Zamboanga and Mindoro claimed that their UAV had an endurance of 17 hours and day and night capabilities. When tested by our military intelligence people in those two demonstrations, it was discovered the UAV could fly less than four hours and could not even transmit what it "saw" to the control tower!

And to think that among the "selling points" of this gadget being touted by its AFP cheer-leaders is that the UAV can even be used in non-military operations, such as monitoring illegal logging activities, agricultural problems, surveying disaster scenes, etc. Sus, when it comes to illegal logging, I’m afraid that our military and police already know – without benefit of aerial surveillance – where illegal logging is going on. So, give us a break!

* * *

What I hear, though, is disquieting. Our Armed Forces Chief of Staff, Gen. Diomedio Villanueva, should tell us it isn’t true that he and a group of our military officers are planning to visit to Israel "very soon." I hope this is mere scuttlebutt and has no veracity to it.

Why should our top general leave the battlefield in the middle of "war games" being conducted jointly with the United States? Or in the midst of an all-out war against the Abus and other terrorists? Worst of all: Why should any of our military brass go to Israel?

The latter would be sending a very bad message to friends and foes alike. Here we are, combatting Islamic fundamentalist and Bangsamoro rebellion, then at the same time getting chummy with the bête noir and hate object of the Islamic world – Israel.

Over the years I’ve covered the Middle East, I’ve been very sympathetic to Israel and its courageous struggle for existence against the encirclement of hostile Arab states, but I’m afraid that the hawkish, increasingly belligerent Prime Minister Ariel Sharon – goaded to fury by escalating "suicide bomber" attacks on his civilian population – has been going too far. We all grieve for the innocent men, women, and children, being murdered by those suicide bomber attacks (the last "bomber" was a woman!), but the Israeli response has been equally savage – with men, women and children dying on the "other side", too. General Sharon, whose Israeli Defense Forces once smashed into Beirut in a bloody invasion of Lebanon (to root out "terrorists" of the PLO, remember?), intemperately bellowed a few days ago that he regretted not having "liquidated" the Palestine Authority’s leader Yasser Arafat at that time – when he had the chance! What a thing to say.

If you’ll recall, it was Sharon who provoked the second or Al Aqsa intifada some 17 months ago by parading around the Temple Mount and the vicinity of the sacred Mosque there, and he wasn’t even Prime Minister yet. How can there ever be "peace" now between Israel, the Palestinians, and the other Arabs? There’s already too much blood on the ground.

And our AFP Chief of Staff and certain of his ranking subordinates are planning to land right smack in the middle of that confrontation? Not even as tourists, I must warn them.

They won’t be safe, even far away from Jaffa street.

* * *

What my informants in the AFP tell me is that the projected expedition of General Villanueva is being dubbed "private." But what’s this? Is it being sponsored by an Israeli company named EMIT? You guessed it. EMIT is the firm which has been offering us those UAVs.

The rumor is that EMIT has been trying to get the visit declared "official" and is setting up meetings for Villanueva and his group with their ranking counterparts in the renowned Israeli Defense Force (IDF). An "inspection" of the EMIT’s facilities would be, of course, the main purpose of the journey. Even the Israeli Embassy here is said to be reluctant to designate the trip as "official" since it is not being sponsored by the government.

EMIT apparently has been trying to sell its UAV system to our Armed Forces since the middle of last year, through their local partners, a Swiss businessman named Isidor Gilan, who’s incidentally Jewish, and a retired general who’s quite well-connected. Yet, EMIT has not sold any UAV anywhere – even to Israel’s own IDF.

Is it true that EMIT sold some target drones to Vietnam several years ago, but was compelled to refund Hanoi the money because the Vietnamese were not satisfied with their product? The "version" I got was that the Vietnamese took one EMIT "personnel" into custody until their money was returned. Singapore, too, is reputed to be another dissatisfied customer.

If any trip to Jerusalem or Tel Aviv is contemplated, my advice to General Villanueva et al. is "scrap that trip." Even the political "fall-out" would be deadly.