Was it a bad omen that the Columbia exploded over Texas?

We should refuse to be stampeded into an "open skies" agreement with the United States. Why on earth now? Let them worry about the skies over Baghdad and Iraq, but let our skies alone.

It’s clear that, despite the over-bubbly optimism of our friend, Air Transportation Office Chief Adelberto Yap, that we’re being pressured by Washington, DC to okay that lopsided deal which will benefit the financially faltering US air carriers and deep-six our equally woobly flag carrier, Philippine Air Lines. Between our flag carrier and theirs, which would you choose?

Colonel Yap has been quoted as saying the final stage of the talks will be held in the US capital on February 18 and 19, and that he expects a bilateral agreement to be signed. Whoa there, pardner! As they say in Texas: Not so fast!

I wonder, for that matter, why they’re trying to foster the impression that an "open skies" deal on cargo is already in effect, and its just the passenger-component that’s under negotiation. On cargo? Perhaps, behind our backs, the American cargo carriers have been in violation for years – without our raising a howl. Correct me if I’m wrong on this matter. Don’t forget, air freight and cargo alone are an escalating business and will soon hit $2 billion a year.

Certainly the close-to-bankrupt American air carriers, devastated by the "fear of flying" of most former frequent flyers and tourists following 9/11, have a moist eye on the prospects of ferrying some of the 7.6 million OFWs (overseas Filipino workers) and the added millions of Filipino overseas residents and Balikbayans home and back to work. Lufthansa, a couple of European carriers, Cathay Pacific, and certainly the Arab airlines, from Saudia to Emirates and Kuwaiti Air are doing a roaring business in this regard.

In the US, only last weekend, on the other hand, United Airlines, the bankrupt US carrier, reported the biggest loss in its history for the year 2002 – i.e., $3.2 billion! (It filed for bankruptcy last December.)

So you see why the Americans have been bullying us to accept an "open skies" agreement dictated by them. They claim that if we sign, all of a sudden Manila’s airport will become a hub of activity, businessmen and tourists will fly in, et cetera. Tell me another windy. Better to believe in the Tooth Fairy, than believe that malarkey.

* * *

I submit that Uncle Sam ought to learn to treat his friends right, since he’s got enemies enough – on every hand. I don’t think that, despite their nasty comments and hostile gestures, the leaders of France (Jacques Chirac et Tout Paris) and Germany (Gerhard Schroeder und die SPD) really hate the United States or don’t like George "Duba" Bush’s warlike intentions towards Iraq. Perhaps they’re just sulking because America is a "superpower" (bungle, though, it does sometimes), while they have lost power. French can’t even cow the Ivory Coast, which used to be their colony of Cote d’Ivoire. Or possibly, the former Teutonic power and the Gauls are envious of the fact that Bush and Britain’s Tony Blair are close as peas in a pod, while they, in turn, have been insulted by The Donald (no, not Trump but Donald Rumsfeld) as representing "Old Europe".

The "New Europeans", meaning those other states like Spain, Italy, Portugal, Denmark, Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary have already joined the US juggernaut – headed inexorably towards impaling Saddam Insane with 3,000 precision-guided bombs and missiles in the first 48 hours of the impending "air campaign."

Good old Washington DC is already announcing what it will do when Dubya, the chief of the Texas Rangers, orders the US Air Force, the 3rd Infantry Division, the 4th Infantry Division, and an expanded Marine expeditionary force to "go".

One of my old pals, a former KGB Rezident (bureau chief) was right. He once told this writer: "We don’t have to spy on America – though we do. All we have to do is read the American newspapers, magazines, and trade journals, to learn America’s secrets, weaponry, gadgetry and plans. They call it press freedom. We call it wonderful!"

You bet.

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America’s enemies, of course, including the Osama Gang have lost no time in declaring that the explosion last Saturday of the space shuttle Columbia over the skies of Bush’s Texas, is a bad omen for the US and its war schemes. The fact that former Israeli Defense Force air ace, Col. Ilan Ranon, was one of the seven astronauts who perished in the shuttle mishap is being exploited by anti-American propagandists as symbolic of what will befall the US-Israeli "imperialist" tandem.

God or Allah, they intone, has cursed the US.

This won’t cut any ice on Texas, the Lone Star State – and, this time, as Texas goes, so goes the nation.

In Texas, they believe in the six-gun – not superstition. The latest dispatch from the beltway the other day was that Bush and Blair, after consulting with each other, had agreed to give the United Nations inspectors "several more weeks" to complete their hunt for weapons of mass destruction. Anyway, this was reported by James Blitz, political editor in Washington DC of the Financial Times of London. But don’t forget: Two more weeks was the timetable, anyway, for the US to beef up its forces in the Gulf to 150,000 from the current 80,000. The Brits, too, need that much time to get their 25,000 men in, and put in place their two aircraft carriers, HMS Ark Royal and HMS Ocean. If these are just war games, they’re very expensive. When you’ve put 200,000 men into the Gulf, it might be cheaper to use them – than to recall them.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who made 150 phone calls to the leaders of member countries and bargained mightily for weeks to get the United Nations Security Council to approve unanimously Resolution 1441, which dispatched UN weapons inspectors into Iraq, is now being reviled by those who fulsomely praised him as a "hero" and the only Dove in the Bush cabinet for having made a U-turn. But why not? Powell is a soldier of his country. When the bugle calls, he snaps to the command. That's what makes America a force to be feared in this world. Americans may debate, angrily, noisily, and even insultingly – but when the flag goes by, they bare their heads, square their shoulders, and fall into step behind it. That's why they call it Old Glory, even when it's coveed with gore.

Yesterday, I listened to Paul and Dorothy Brown, the elderly parents of the US astronaut David M. Brown, the mission specialist who was among the seven who perished, being interviewed on CNN. From out in space, David had sent them e-mail messages expressing his affection, and his exhilaration over what he saw from his high perch in the sky. David, they recalled, had been a medical doctor, then joined the US Navy and took up flying. Not content with being a carrier pilot, he longed to become an astronaut – a dream he finally realized.

When asked what David had said about the space program, in case he would die, there was just the hint of a tear in the eye of his grieving but proud father. He would have wanted the space program to "carry on", both Paul Brown and the astronaut’s mother "Dot" asserted, without hesitation. They said their son had been doing what he loved, something useful and good, and that effort must never be abandoned.

God bless them! In the hearts of its unpretentious but quietly courageous people, brave even when bowed by grief – that’s where a nation’s strength lies.

* * *

I was inaccurate yesterday about the President’s schedule of arrival. She’s scheduled to fly in from Kuwait at 7 o’clock this morning, more or less.

At 10 a.m. she’ll meet with the US emissaries from Washington DC, before she convenes her Cabinet for its weekly session.

No one knows whether, as an offshoot of that meeting with the Americans, GMA’s timetable to go see Bush in the White House will be advanced, or whether it will remain April 2 or 3, or even her "birthday" on April 5. If you ask me, much hinges on what’s decided after the conference with Karen Brooks, who’s in charge of the Asian Desk in the National Security Council and a White House staffer, and Mary Thigh, of US Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s staff in the Department of Defense.

It’s already clear that Dubya is going for broke in Iraq, no matter what anyone says, not even if faced with the severest frowns in the United Nations. In sum, if Saddam doesn’t give up and get out, he wants Saddam's scalp in his belt. In the meantime, he’s toting up a list of who’s friend, or foe. There’s no "in-between".

I’m told that Bush has been asking: "What about the Philippines?"

* * *

Foreign Affairs Secretary Blas F. Ople turned 76 years old yesterday — although his boosters claim he’s 76 "years young". There was a Te Deum for him celebrated by His Political Turbulence Jaime Cardinal Sin. There was celebration in the DFA.

Ambassador Jose "Toto" Zaide, who came home from doing a yeoman job as our envoy to Berlin to become Protocol Chief in the Department of Foreign Affairs points out that Ka Blas is a mere stripling at the age of 76. After all, Konrad Adenauer was 73 when he was elected the first postwar Kanzler (Chancellor) of Germany – which is why, I recall, the great Adenauer was always reverently referred to as Der Alte. Deng Xiaoping was 75 when he became undisputed leader of China’s Communist Party. Winston Churchill was 66 when he assumed the wartime Prime Ministership of Britain, then was recalled (after postwar political defeat) to lead the United Kingdom again in his 70s. Ronald Reagan was 70 when elected President of the United States, then was reelected to a second term.

Does this mean that Ka Blas has gotten his second wind? I must say that his record since he took over the Foreign Office has been impressive. The DFA has notched up its highest rating since ratings began in the Social Weather Stations (SWS).

Zaide maintains that Ka Blas quit the bottle "a long time ago." He has the late General Carlos P. Romulo to thank for that, Toto said. During the martial law regime, the General fired off a cable – Zaide remembers — from our Philippine Mission in Geneva to then President Ferdinand E. Marcos. CPR stated: "Mr. President, you have the best minister of labor in the world . . . whenever he is sober!" Is it true that Ople quit tippling as a result of that jibe?

In any event, he admittedly remains devoted to his coffee and chain-smoking habits, vices that he picked up during days as a newspaperman. "The only thing that doesn’t work well with Ka Blas," one DFA official admiringly remarked yesterday, "are the knees. But by historical coincidence, this was the same handicap of the first foreign minister of this country: Apolinario Mabini. Yet, both outstanding foreign secretaries are known famously to think on their feet."

Not on their knees, I’d say — neither Mabini, the Sublime Paralytic, nor Ka Blas Ople, who may cough but isn’t paralytic, and is known as the Kulog ng Hagonoy.

In his speech yesterday, Blas thundered mightily enough. He declared: "I joined the Department . . . 6 months ago. You will remember that I was living the good life in the Senate where I’d been elected twice and at one time was the president of the chamber. Maraming kaibigan ko ang nagtaka kung bakit tinanggap ko ang inalok na posisyon sa Gabinete ni Pangulong Arroyo. Alam naman ninyo na maraming miyembro ng Gabinete na gustong maging senador. Ako’y senador na, pinili ko pang malipat sa Gabinet." (Many friends of mine were puzzled why I accepted the proffered position in the Cabinet of President Arroyo. You know that many Cabinet members want to become senator. There I was, already a senator, but I chose to transfer to the Cabinet!)

He added, however: "I am very proud of being associated with this Department!" Carry on Blas, onward to your year 77!

I’m intrigued, though, by Ople’s remark about the "good life" in the Senate. Did the former senator mean that they’re living la dolce vita over that chamber? Seem so, I tend to agree.