Breathing in

With security so tight for the first anniversary of the terror attacks in the United States, few people really believed Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda would reprise their spectacular caper on Sept. 11 anywhere in the world.

Still we were glued to our TV sets, waiting for action as former New York City Mayor Rudy Guiliani started droning out the names of the nearly 3,000 documented fatalities at Ground Zero. We watched the American First Couple at the White House, the people waving US flags and grieving for their loved ones, all the time waiting for a dreadful news flash that happily never came.

Driving past the US Embassy on Roxas Boulevard on Sept. 11 and 12 (the 11th in the US), I found myself stepping on the gas a bit harder, trying to put distance between myself and the heavily guarded compound as quickly as possible. I calculated the radius of a blast resulting from a truck bomb or car bomb or even one suicide bomber. Would two kilometers be safe enough?

Macabre — but it was not entirely idle thought. Filipinos have lived with terrorism even before 9/11. Remember those killed in the bombings in Metro Manila on Dec. 31, 2000? I don’t think the bombers even knew our national hero Jose Rizal, whose death anniversary was being marked on that date. The bombers did their worst damage on a crowded Light Rail Transit coach. There were body parts everywhere. After that, trashcans disappeared at shopping malls.

Long before that, the mastermind of the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 had his cohorts plant a small bomb on a Japan-bound plane from the Philippines. A passenger was killed as the bomb exploded under his seat.

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I thought there were enough security measures to deter a terrorist attack yesterday and on Wednesday. A bigger possibility, however, is that there will be another attack — perhaps as dramatic and deadly as 9/11, as soon as some folks let their guard down in the United States.

Other attacks could be staged anywhere in the world. Our country is obviously vulnerable because of our open support for the US-led war on terror and our historical ties to the United States.

We are also a close neighbor of Indonesia, believed to be the base of an Islamist cell operating in Southeast Asia that has been linked to al-Qaeda. That cell is believed responsible for those Rizal Day bombings in Metro Manila and the mall bombing in General Santos City.

At least Washington didn’t shut down its embassy here because of 9/11 threats, as it did in other countries including Indonesia. And the only action reported yesterday was a bomb threat at the British Embassy in Makati. Our sad experience here is that terrorists don’t threaten, they just act.

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A year after 9/11, is the world a safer place? What has been achieved?

US Ambassador Francis Ricciardone, speaking at the commemorative concert for 9/11 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, enumerated the gains: There’s a broad international coalition against terrorism. Terrorist assets have been frozen and their front organizations exposed (Philippine communists, of course, will disagree). The Taliban was toppled. "Terrorist plots have been unraveled from Madrid to Manila," Ricciardone said. "And thousands of terrorists have been brought to justice, or are hiding for fear of justice."

On the other hand, what has not been accomplished? Osama bin Laden has not been found; there are strong indications that he survived the US operation in Afghanistan. The head of the Taliban and al-Qaeda operatives also survived and are feared to have dispersed to other parts of the globe. The person who sent mail tainted with anthrax spores in the United States has not been found.

Bin Laden used the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as an excuse for the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. A year after 9/11, the Israelis and Palestinians are no closer to a peace settlement, and the specter of more suicide bombings will haunt Israel for a long time.

Meanwhile, Saddam Hussein remains the strongman of Iraq. Last night we listened to US President George W. Bush present his case to the United Nations General Assembly for the ouster of Saddam. The international coalition against terror isn’t coalescing when it comes to a war on Iraq.

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What has happened in the Philippines since 9/11? We rushed the passage of the Anti-Money Laundering Law. GI Joe came back and the Abu Sayyaf moved from Basilan to Sulu; some members probably went to Sabah. Aldam Tilao, a.k.a. Abu Sabaya, was peppered with bullets in a sea encounter after some guys ratted on him. Unfortunately, our soldiers forgot to fish out his remains from the water.

For the first time, Pinoy "TNTs" or illegals in the United States were deported en masse. The Malaysians, jittery about foreigners, are kicking out thousands of our people from Sabah. Other Filipinos staying illegally in other countries also face deportation.

We have become so used to having our belongings checked everywhere that each time I see a security guard at any entrance I automatically move to open my bag.

We now have to take off our shoes before flying out of the NAIA. We’ve learned to keep box cutters, nail clippers and batteries in our checked-in luggage. Yesterday immigration authorities banned canned goods on flights, fearing they could contain anthrax spores.

Do we feel safer with all these security measures? Sometimes the measures seem like overkill; sometimes we think security is too lax. And sometimes we don’t care; we are, after all, a fatalistic people. If it’s our time to die, we’re going to die; if we have to be searched at some airport, why make a fuss about it? We have too many other problems to worry about.

Life goes on, and we do our best not to give terrorists the satisfaction of knowing that they have altered our lives. Yet our idle thoughts include calculations about the range of a bomb. We see an Arab and wonder if he’s plotting to kill someone. And we keep waiting for news about the next major terrorist attack.

This is the ugly legacy of 9/11. No matter how we try to return to normalcy, we will all be holding our breath for a long time to come.