Gensan under bomb attack

General Santos City, once Davao City’s main challenger for the title of Mindanaoís most upmarket urban center (and a super-port, to boot), has been under heavy attack this year ó by terrorist bombs, fire (arson?) and even as earthquake.

Yesterday, 13 persons were killed and dozens wounded when a bomb, planted in a motorized tricycle parked in front of the Fitmark shopping center, exploded. Among those slain were street vendors, passers-by and what we call estambays (stand-bys).

A second bomb burst near radio station DXMD and a third at the Silway Bridge in Brgy. Dadianjan West, but at this writing I havenít received the casualty toll. A phoned-in "threat" said that there were 18 bombs set to detonate all over the city, but perhaps ó hopefully ó this was just a scare tactic. However, we should leave nothing to chance or bahala na. These are scarey times. (There goes the "wow Philippines!" campaign of Dick Gordon and the Department of Tourism, Iíd say.)

Gensan’s Chief Superintendent of Police (General) Bartolome Baluyot was quick to pin the blame on that vague group, the "Indigenous Peopleís Federal Army", apparently the same bunch which has been planting those crude bombs in Makati and Quezon City, including at the approaches to two metro rail stations. Fortunately, the bombs in our metropolis were discovered and disarmed, or proved to be duds.

My own guess was that those "primitive" bombs, so easily detected and defused, were littered around the litoral in an effort to lull us into a false sense of security. I have long suspected the idea was that the moment we relaxed our guard and began treating that so-called indigenous "Federalist" gang as just a bunch of amateurs and crazies, the big boys who’re really behind the entire conspiracy would begin detonating the real heavy stuff. What’s happening down south in General Santos City may be a signal that the genuine bombing offensive has begun.

I thought that in the wake of the huge conflagration that swept Gensan’s business district not long ago, our policemen and security agencies would be more on the alert. Apparently they were still snoring through siesta when that clever explosive was wheeled right to the sidewalk in front of the ill-starred shopping center.

Let this be a lesson to us here in Metro Manila. In fact, Iím still suspicious. The "Indigenous People’s Federalist Army" tag or whatever was just a red herring. Now somebody stating he belongs to Abu Sayyaf is trying to claim credit for it., then, thereís the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), who’ve acquired the expertise of the just-convicted Indonesian terrorist Fathur al-Ghozi, and are the better bomb-makers. They demonstrated this convincingly by those destructive "Rizal Day" December 30, 2000 bombings in Metro Manila where 22 died and many others were wounded and crippled. Maybe the MILF is turning the heat up in Gensan. And then thereís the Kuratong Baleleng gang based in nearby Ozamis City, whose slimy tentacles spread all over Mindanao and whose murderous reach extends up to Metro Manila.

If we’re caught napping next time, weíve only ourselves to blame.

* * *

Haven’t you noticed? Work on the controversial Terminal at the Manila international airport seems to have ground to a halt. If you ask me, this is good news for most airlines which have already been bracing themselves for the expensive fees anticipated to be imposed by the operators of the new terminal. If the Terminal project is stalled, the most delighted would be our national flag carrier, Philippine Airlines, since PAL has balked at being compelled by the government to transfer its international operations to the third Terminal (at triple the cost), although PAL already has its own ultramodern Centennial Terminal II, which had been designed by Aeroport de Paris.

The main reason I see for putting Terminal 3’s construction "on hold" is that its major funder, the German group, "Fraport" AG, which already inserted $350 million in interim financing into the undertaking, has turned off the spigot. In short, Fraport AG, which operates Frankfurt Airport, Europe’s second largest, has had to"desperately seek ways to limit the damage arising from its involvement" in the project. Those are not my words, incidentally, but were culled from a report of Handelsblatt.com.

Handelsblatt quoted Fraport’s chief finance officer, Johannes Endler, as stating: "We’re not paying a cent more!"

Another Fraport management board member declared: "If we had known what would happen, we would never have got involved."

Handelsblatt said that "Fraport’s major problem arises from its partner in the project. The main concession for the new terminal was awarded to the Chengs, a local tycoon family of Chinese origin. The family set up a company called Piatco to manage the concession." Mind you, I’m still quoting verbatim from the German side.

It seems Fraport acquired a stake of 65 percent in Piatco, but that stake conferred only 30 percent of the voting rights. The Chengs, on the other hand (Handelsblatt averred), "hold a minority stake but a majority of the voting rights." The report goes on to add: "The Chengs decide, and Fraport pays, as it’s described in the derisive comments made in Manila."

"Another problem is political in nature," the document goes on to point out. "The concession was awarded to the Chengs by the Philippine government under former president, Joseph Estrada. And Fraport chief Wilhelm Bender sealed his company’s involvement in the prestige project in an agreement signed in July 1999."

But now, former President Estrada is gone – and I might add that even President GMA’s Secretary of Transportation and Communications, Pantaleon "Bebot" Alvarez, is finding it hard-sledding in the Congressional Commission on Appointments owing to his alleged participation in the original Piatco deal.

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What complicates the German group Fraport’s problems is that the company last year launched a public offering of shares in Europe and around the world representing 30 percent of its equity capital. The proceeds totalled 914 euros (the new European currency). The fact is that it’s still by and large in public sector hands, with its major stockholders the City of Frankfurt, the state of Hesse and the Federal Government of Germany.

Fraport has had to stress, through the firm’s spokesman Klaus Busch, that none of the 914 million euros raised (representing 30 percent of the company’s equity capital) had gone into the Philippine passenger terminal project. The Frankfurt newspaper headline blared: "Fraport Denies that It’s Hemorrhaging Money over Manila Project." The firm went so far as to declare it had made no investment in the Terminal 3 affair since the end of 2000. (Before that, it admitted, it had provided 200 million euros in interim financing and 100 million euros in guarantees).

"We are in intensive negotiations with our partners, Piatco, and the Philippine government," spokesman Busch maintained. "The aim was to find a way of fulfilling the conditions under which credits would be made available by an international banking consortium which agreed to a $400 million financing package before the project ran into trouble."

Up to now, really, the question going around in local business and banking circles remains: Why did the Chengs have so much clout that they bagged such a juicy contract (which has, of course, begun to unravel)? Who are they, anyway?

All I can say is that in Germany’s business and financial circles, at this stage, our name is zilch. Frag nicht warum

* * *

It’s typical of our government. Malacañang, through acting Press Secretary Silvestre Afable, denied any knowledge of the Philippine National Police "training" program scheduled to start this week in Subic, particularly with regard to the report that the trainors would include 10 Israeli "police" experts.

Afable, who’s aptly named "Yoyong", admitted that the only thing he knows is that the President had earlier sought training assistance from Britain’s Scotland Yard on anti-kidnapping operations as well as from the Hong Kong police. (Why the Hong Kong police, one might inquire? The biggest kidnapping caper over there, the abduction of a multibillionaire taipan’s son by a super-bandit nicknamed "Big Spender", was solved by the Chinese police and the People’s Liberation Army across the border. After a trial which was concluded in just a couple of days, Big Spender, was executed with a big bullet. If I had my druthers, that’s the procedure we ought to adopt here.)

In any event, it’s amazing that the Palace knew nothing about the Israeli "teachers." Or did it? You already know those Palace spokesmen, all the way up to GMA herself and her spin-doctors: they’re the denial kings.

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I don’t think it’s a very bright idea, if true, for the PNP to import Israeli instructors for the elite members of its Special Action Force (SAF). The arrival of Israeli "experts" is bound to send our local Muslims into a tizzy, and even invite an escalation of Moro terrorist attacks – including one or two on the Israelis. While I don’t care a fiddle or a fig about offending the sensibilities of Islamic fanatics, why ask for more trouble? We’ve headaches enough, self-inflicted at that, without importing one more.

It must be said, of course, of the Israelis that they’re among the best of the best when it comes to counter-terrorism. Their "269 Counter-terrorist Unit", as it’s labeled, is a special group within the crack Israeli Defense Force (IDF) elite paratroops. The paratroops were first organized in 1948 during Israel’s war of independence, then fought in the Sinai Campaign of 1956, the Six Day War of 1967, the undeclared War of Attrition in the years following that, the Yom Kippur War of 1973, and the Lebanon War of June 6, 1982, launched by the current Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and dubbed, would you believe, "Peace for Galilee". (This was when Sharon and his IDF butted their way through to Beirut, smashing Syrians, the PLO and the Lebanese forces aside, then stood by on September 16 and 17, 1982, to permit the vengeful Christian Phalangists – seeking revenge for the assassination of their leader, Bashir Gemayel – to massacre hundreds of Palestinian men and women in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila.)

The above-mentioned 269 Counter-terrorist unit (akin to Germany’s GSG-9 in function) is reputed to have furnished the paratroops commandos who barreled into Entebbe airport in Uganda to rescue the passengers of Air France Flight 139 bound from Tel Aviv to Paris (hijacked between Athens and Benghazi by Palestinian terrorists headed by a German named Wilfried Boese).

The date of that famous rescue was July 3, 1976. The terrorists were gunned down in the Entebbe terminal in a brief firefight, all the hostages, except three who were killed in the crossfire, were saved, and hustled aboard two C-130s to be rushed to safety. A fourth hostage, alas, Mrs. Dora Bloch, who had been brought for emergency treatment to a local hospital, was murdered in revenge by the embarrassed Ugandans who had been collaborating with the terrorists. The Israelis lost only one man – unfortunately, the commander of the mission himself, Col. Yonathan "Yoni" Netanyahu. The youthful colonel, who became by virtue of his death a hero of the IDF, had been killed by one shot from an Ugandan soldier while he was supervising the boarding of the freed hostages on the C-130s. On the strength of his brother’s legend, it’s said, Binyamin (Benjamin) Netanyahu became Prime Minister of Israel in 1997.

There are other elite Israeli units. Taking leaf from the British Special Air Service (SAS), the Israeli Army organized an ultra-secret commando group named the Sayeret Markal or General Staff Reconnaissance Unit. The Israeli Navy has its own outfit (inspired by World War II Allied and even German frogmen and the US Navy SEALS), known as Shayetet 13 (Flotilla 13), or, more generally, Ha’commando Ha’yami, or Naval Commandos.

There are less than six million Israelis, yet they’ve the toughest fighting forces in the Mid-East.

What’s our excuse for not developing one of like caliber?