TGIF: Is he really gone? Now, can we get back to normal?

Thank God it’s Friday. Why? Because as I write this, Thursday night, the motorcade bringing Manila’s Most Talkative – i.e., Congressman Mark Jimenez – is approaching NAIA-1 at the airport. If M.J. was really turned over last night to US Embassy Legal Attaché (alias resident F.B.I. agent) Jim Nixon and a US Federal Marshal to be led aboard that plane bound for Guam, we suppose, onwards from there to the continental United States – then we can all return to normal.

Indeed, the newspapers almost forgot all about Christmas because they were all talking about Mark Jimenez and his accusations ladled out by the bucketful, right and left. Up to the last minute, there was even a ruckus raised by two congressmen scrambling to get seats on the outgoing airplane, so they could escort their idol on his outward journey. Surely, they weren’t using this as an excuse to visit Miami. Did they get to go? And what about their constituents – did they feel abandoned? Or, by the absence of their Representatives, would their constituents feel better served?

Anyway, Happy New Year!

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I wonder why the government still wants to negotiate "peace" with the rebel New People’s Army (NPA). On the occasion of their organization’s 34th founding anniversary, those unrepentant bandidos of the NPA have vowed to launch even bigger attacks.

And how can we hope to comply with their insolent demand that the "terrorist" tag rightly given them by the United States and the European Union be dropped? To begin with, our government – stupid as it is in its dealings with the NPA – cannot even attempt to "convince" the US and Europe to revise that view without looking ridiculous.

Indeed, the NPA’s various spokesmen whose predictable brags are characterized by the well-publicized Doublespeak of that media favorite, Ka Roger Rosal, continue to jerk us around. They still bluster about the "revolutionary armed struggle", when their main preoccupation is to collect millions of pesos in "revolutionary" or "progressive" taxes from the people they claim to champion, including hapless farmers, fishpond owners, tradesmen, business operators, logging firms, bus companies – and, of course, politicians.

Their collection technique is, as always, more effective than the Bureau of Internal Revenue’s: In short, they say, that if you don’t pay up, you’re dead. First, they burn out your business. Finally, they give you powderburn. Tigbak. Dedo. That’s the final sentence.

This writer cannot, incidentally, fathom the meaning of those "unilateral" two-day truces so casually announced by the GMA government. How can you declare a unilateral truce? Just as it takes two to tango, it takes two sides to declare a "truce". If the NPA attacks in the next day or two, how can the rebels be accused of breaking a "truce" to which they never agreed? Such wimpish and foolish government declaration merely serve to lull the unwary citizenry into a false sense of "holiday" security – when, in truth, nothing has changed. The NPAs can still shoot, bomb, and murder at will – while we’re blissfully singing Christmas carols, and our soldiers and policemen, perhaps, are going about seeking pamasko.

How could we ever expect those Communists – or alleged Communists – to "respect" Christmas, when they don’t believe in Christ? If they think of jingle bells, it’s only the jingle of the cash register.

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I had to do a double-take yesterday afternoon when I saw a report on ANC (ABS-CBN News Channel) that our Foreign Affairs Secretary, General Blas Ople, had predicted the US would attack Iraq on or about January 27. Sus, Ka Blas! Did you know something even George "Dubya" Bush himself doesn’t seem sure about, or even his partner in planning, Britain’s Tony Blair? It can almost be asserted as certain that America, and, in tandem, the United Kingdom, will attack, but the date hasn’t been set yet.

Subsequent reports clarified that what Secretary Ople had said was that Philippine diplomatic missions in the Washington DC, New York City, and the Middle East had conveyed to the DFA the information that the US might attack Iraq by the end of January to the first week of February. How did they know? Why not after Valentine’s Day?

Even yesterday’s announcement that our government is deploying a team to Saudi Arabia and the Middle East to see to the safety and security of our OFWs (overseas Filipino workers) isn’t even news. President Macapagal-Arroyo already outlined the details of that scheme in the speech she delivered last December 17, at the 50th anniversary dinner of the National Press Club in the Coral Ballroom of the Holiday Inn.

In that address, which, ironically, did not get much publicity despite having been delivered to an entire roomful of journalists (although many, admittedly, were of the vintage variety), the Chief Executive had pledged that the national government "is taking care of Filipinos in Middle East danger zones".

"Our OFWs and diplomatic missions in the Middle East," she said, "have been informed of the consequences of war."

GMA noted that in cooperation with "host governments" and the United Nations Office of International Migration, Manila was "ensuring the safety and welfare of Filipino nationals in the event of a crisis". She revealed that she had "reactivated a previous directive" to the Preparedness Team headed by Special Envoy (former Armed Forces Chief of Staff Roy Cimatu) "to relocate the remaining Filipinos in Iraq at least three days before the start of hostilities, upon a signal from the UN agencies of Iraq or upon receipt of reliable intelligence information".

Indeed, the above assertion suffers from the same infirmity as the "timetable" put forward yesterday by Secretary Ople. How can GMA, Ople, or Cimatu possibly know when it is "three days before the start of hostilities"? Remember Pearl Harbor!

As for the OFWs in Kuwait, the President disclosed she had two contingency plans: the first is for the estimated 90 percent of the 60,000 OFWs there "who may opt to stay even in the event of the outbreak of war", and a second "for the 10 percent who might (want to) be relocated". The Philippine Embassy in Kuwait had already submitted a detailed cost of the plans, "which shall be supported when the time comes". Wow! If the expenditure has to be approved by the Commission on Audit (COA), the war may have been over for years before the evacuation budget is okayed.

GMA stated that the Philippine Overseas Labor staff in Kuwait has been augmented, a defense attaché assigned there plus a team of Armed Forces experts in anti-biological and chemical warfare.

On the other hand, "OFWs in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Iran," the President announced, "will be allowed to remain. These countries are considered safe." (Sanamagan, Madam Commander-in-Chief: Even the Israeli Defense Forces or IDF don’t consider Israel safe!)

"Let me assure you," GMA told her audience, "that General Cimatu’s planning for Middle East preparedness is as meticulous as the planning that went into his capture of 40 MILF camps during his heyday as military commander."

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THE ROVING EYE . . . The hundreds of guests who went Wednesday night (Christmas Day) to Speaker Joe de Venecia’s 65th birthday bash in his Dasmariñas Village mansion to pay "tribute" were so numerous (politicians, ambassadors, friends, wannabes and used-to-be’s included) that it was SRO, standing-room-only for many. There were more visitors than tables and chairs. Vice President Teofisto Guingona was the most smiling and unruffled of all – attired in a neat barong Tagalog, and doing a Mona Lisa about his plans. He had his dinner in the VIP room, then waltzed out early… Justice Secretary Nani Perez showed up briefly, shook hands all around, then left. He told me that he was the one who had requested the President for an indefinite "leave of absence" to enable him to prepare his defense against the charges made against him by MJ and others – including, probably, Bulacan Rep. Willie Villarama…. Acting Justice Secretary Mercy Gutierrez, who belongs to the famous Ateneo College of Law Class of 1972, said that even before the recent fracas, Nani Perez had been thinking of taking a leave of absence for the treatment of his "bleeding ulcers". The acting DOJ Secretary, by the way, has worked in the Justice department for 19 years, and her former "boss" there, when he was DOJ and then Executive Secretary, was Tito Guingona.