GMA and Giuliani / Gen. Wurster makes sense

So we need a foreigner "to turn the Philippines around"? And rid the archipelago of rampant crime and violence, of law-breakers about to burst through our chamber door? They are in the neighborhood already. If we don’t watch out, they’ll get inside our homes, rob us of all our valuables, stick knives and guns at our throats and make off with somebody for ransom. So what is the solution? President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo no less is reportedly hell-bent on engaging the services of former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani as–hold your precious breath – peace and order consultant.

Inane? Yes. Stupid and preposterous? Absolutely. Dumb and lunatic? You can bet our life.

With all due respect to Rudy Giuliani as an outstanding American who held all of New York in patriotic leash following the destruction of Twin Towers and the Pentagon last Sept. 11, he’ll probably stay in Manila three days, take fright and flee for his life. He will need to work with an honest, relatively incorrupt government–and there is none. He will need to link up with an intrepid and fearless Philippine National Police–and there is none. He will need oodles of money to straighten out the government’s bureaucratic shambles–and there is no money. He will need good point men in both the police and the Armed Forces of the Philippines–and there are none. He’ll look DILG Secretary Joey Lina straight in the eye–and all he’ll find is the vacuous stare of a wooden Indian. He’ll bark out orders–and nobody will obey him. Congress will ignore him.

I well remember what Lady Margaret Thatcher – whom GMA met in London – once told me in 1996 when an anti-terrorism bill was afloat in Congress sponsored in the Senate by Juan Ponce Enrile and in the House by Roilo Golez. There was a lot of to-do about this bill, raging controversy, and it was eventually shot down. Lady Thatcher’s words at the time were distilled wisdom.

"If your police are corrupt, and I am told they are, then no anti-terrorism or anti-crime drive will succeed. Because you will need the police to implement the law, and they will likely be the first to violate the law."

What she was actually saying was that we needed something like Scotland Yard and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to root crime and terrorism out. The PNP has skull and bones on its masthead.

So I do wish that GMA desist from such statements (her arrival statement) that during the year she occupied Malacañang after the success of People Power II, "the pace with which the Philippines has been able to restore political and economic stability has been extraordinary and exciting." Extraordinary? Exciting? On the contrary, she contradicts herself–a 180-degree volte face – with the abject admission she wants to hire the services of Rudy Giuliani to clean the nation of its Augean stables and exterminate crime.

And pritheee, will you and your "dream" team of economic and financial advisers stop pulling the wool over all and sundry by releasing figures and statements that everything is going up roses–and the economy is well on the way to Arcadia?

Okay, so the economy did progress by 3.4 percent GDP (Gross Domestic Product) in 2001, better than all forecasts. But you forgot to mention that GDP growth will have to reach eight percent–and remain on that course – to make any appreciable dent on widespread poverty. Government statistics reveal that poverty — instead of diminishing – increased to virtually 40 percent (39.9 percent) of the population. So where did all your extravagant promises to reduce poverty and open up one to two million jobs in your SONA go? And how can our economy lay aside its crutches when our exports contracted by 15.6 percent last year, to $32,148 billion from $38,078 billion in 2000? And how about 250,000 homeless children in tatters roaming the streets and scavenging in garbage dumps?

That indefatigable Keeper of the Ark of the Makati Covenant Guillermo Luz will counter that other countries in Asia suffered even more ("were dragged even deeper"). But no sooner had he said this than Lehman Brothers in Singapore announced in its latest report that Asia’s economies, excluding Japan, would grow five percent overall this year. South Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong would be posting the strongest recoveries. And the Philippines? Along with Indonesia and Thailand, our country "should lag because of structural problems and as the countries grappled with tougher competition from China."

Lehman forecast China would grow 6.9 percent this year, 7.1 in 2003, South Korea five percent this year, 5.5 in 2003. The Philippines was seen growing three percent this year and four percent next year. Nothing like facts, figures and statistics to straighten all of us out. So, Madam, mynheers, cut out all the pastrami that our economy is on the surge.

* * *

Unlike so many of our government leaders who excel in mumbo-jumbo, Brig. Gen. Donald Wurster is at least beginning to talk sense. The commander of US forces was reported as having made some top-of-the-barrel statements during a call at the Zamboanga City Hall, first of which was that the US had no plans to set up bases in Mindanao. The general is correct. The US Defense Department has completed plans to scuttle fixed forward military bases particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. Why? Because they no longer serve their original purpose. Where formerly they were virtually untouchable and unreachable, the "enemy" can now rain missiles and smart bombs on these bases.

So forget Clark Airbase and Subic Naval Base being restored to the Americans. The Americans will simply come and go, come and go, using the Philippines to project the US’s military might as the case may be through "joint military exercises." There will be installations, not bases. If Muslim terrorists get in the way as they do in Mindanao, they will provide the Americans with "combat action." The real strategic objective is to secure the South China Sea, the main lifeline of world trade dominated by the United States. With their highly sophisticated air armada and their Cruise missiles and smart bombs, they have the mobility to strike from the rear. Fixed forward bases will close shop. All they need is access to a "friendly country" and the Philippines is considered a very friendly country. In fact, GMA was the first leader in Asia to offer the US assistance in America’s "war on terror."

Now who said the US Special Forces would not, would never get in harm’s way in Basilan or Muslim Mindanao?

General Wurster said the US is prepared to take casualties from possible attacks "to achieve the quality objective" of helping the Philippine government crush the Abu Sayyaf. Read carefully. The US forces expect to be attacked, and if they are not attacked, they would be terribly disappointed. Now focus on the term "quality objective." What does this mean? This means the US when attacked (and they will be attacked) will pour everything in their war high-tech arsenal not just to beat the Abu Sayyaf, but make sure the ferocity of state-of-the-art weaponry – as they displayed in Afghanistan – will rain relentlessly on the enemy.

Will they succeed? I don’t really know. President George W. Bush has pulled the pin from the grenade in his State of the Union speech.

It was a war whoop, take-no-prisoners speech. This line addressed to so-called "timid countries" made my hair stand: "Make no mistake about it, if they do not act, American will." And the US has appropriated a defense budget of $387 billion – the largest in two decades – to make sure nobody stands in the way. I can already see President Bush and Arroyo facing each other in O.K. Corral. If after six months, and the war in Basilan is yet to be won, will GMA order the US forces to leave Philippine territory? If they refuse because they have suffered substantial casualties, and now they want a full-scale offensive in Basilan and elsewhere with huge reinforcements from the mainland, will GMA give way?

This is what scares me. By this time, Balikatan 02-1 may have set off awful carnage in Mindanao. And by this time too, anti-America or anti-government protests in Metro Manila and other cities may have wild-fired in a kind of social and political maelstrom nobody anticipated. Would GMA declare martial law? If not martial law, a state of rebellion that would enable her to stage snap presidential elections to legitimize her presidency? How would the military and the police react? Would they support her? Would the Americans, who prefer GMA to anybody else, certainly to a military dictatorship, stand by her?

This is the grubby "mess" many nationalists fear because it could go out of control. And wire the whole nation into turbulence.

The truth is, the world is whirling fast to that grey area after the end of the Cold War. That bipolar world had the US and the USSR as the superpowers. The USSR has disintegrated, and now the US is all alone as a superpower. But maybe not for long. Asia, the seat of ancient civilizations, has caught on to the economic and military technology of the US and the West, China particularly. And Islam is in Asia, too. This is our world today.