If we start giving in to terrorists, there's no end to their murderous blackmail

We’ll have to brace ourselves for the worst, while hoping and praying for the best. Islamic terrorists in Iraq – who, of course, call themselves holy warriors or freedom fighters – have seized a Filipino hostage and threatened to "behead" their captive if our government doesn’t pull out our Filipino contingent from Iraq "within three days".

Some reports said yesterday the deadline was 72 hours.

The hostaged victim has been identified as Angelo de la Cruz. True, all of us fear for his life. If those beasts run true to form, they may indeed behead him, just as the Abu Sayyaf kidnap-terrorists did their victims so frequently in Basilan. As a nation, surely, we are not callous to the fates of beheaded victims, including the American Guillermo Sobero (remember?) whom the ASG beheaded not long after their raid on Dos Palmas resort in Palawan. Just as they’ve been beheading Italians, South Koreans, Americans, etc. in Iraq.

Will yielding to the blackmail of the Iraqi terrorists save De la Cruz? Perhaps yes, possibly no.

If we surrender to this demand, however, there will be no end to bullying and blackmail – the abduction and hostaging of Filipinos everywhere else in the world – including, time and again, in Iraq.

The usual leftists and radicals have naturally jumped on this issue to demand the recall of our pitifully small 51-member Philippine contribution to the allied "coalition" in Iraq. On cue, Associated Press has quoted a certain Vince Borneo, a spokesman for Migrante, the already well-known leftwing group which claims to speak for our 7.4 million OFWs abroad – but which is a noisy but pipsqueak bunch, very well-oiled in propaganda. Borneo declares that "the Philippine government still has a chance to save the hostage".

Also on cue, other Leftist militants, from Gabriela onwards, rallied in front of the US Embassy, chanting "pull out! pull out!" and denouncing GMA as an American puppet for sending "troops" to Iraq. When the television cameras (those groups simply adore TV opportunities) panned over the group, oops, they panned too far and revealed, the agitators numbered less than 30. However, this tiny bunch managed to temporarily jam the traffic on Roxas boulevard, putting the noses of hundreds of irritated drivers and commuters out of joint.

It’s good that the Cabinet met yesterday and confirmed that there will be no pullout. The trouble with our government, it must be said, is that the message delivered seems to be "no pullout . . . yet". A firm "No" would have been more effective.

As soon as the new Iraqi Government of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, which was handed power last June 28, declares it no longer needs our presence and our help, our contingent must immediately leave, but not a day sooner. If we expect our friends to come to our aid when help is badly needed, we must show that we are ready to bear the burden and pay the price of helping them, too – even if lifeblood is at stake. We are not a craven nation that flees at the first whiff of grapeshot or rocket flame, or the first drop of innocent blood.

Indeed, our contingent is so small that it ought to be embarrassing to us. But it flies our flag, and that is something.

The President is right to forbid the recruitment and departure – even if this is almost impossible to enforce – of any more Filipino workers for Iraq, the danger zone and, in truth, killing zone. We already have 4,000 OFWs there, laboring for a living, even if they’re not blind and realize they are in harm’s way.

The government, through Ambassador (and retired General) Roy Cimatu, has for weeks been prepared to retrieve and repatriate any of our OFWs who ask to be rescued or evacuated. Only a few have taken advantage of this option.

It is sad that there are so few opportunities here at home that millions of our Filipinos have had to find gainful employment abroad, enduring hardships and separation, often enough their very lives at risk. Yet the Filipino endures. Rather than an exodus from war-torn Iraq, it seems, there are still prospective Filipino workers trying to get in.

It would be a happy day when we can bring many, if not most, of our brethren and our children laboring in "exile" home. But the dawn of that day still seems too far away. In the meantime, we must all lock arms – kapit-bisig – and struggle, united, towards the future. This is the only way for our redemption, and, God willing, our eventual vindication as a nation strong and true. True, we had traitors and collaborators, but we lost one million Filipinos during the war and Japanese military occupation because most of us were too proud and patriotic to collaborate, and bend knee to our subjugation – 100,000 of the victims in Manila alone. In a population then of 18 million, it was a significant sacrifice.

Today, steeped as we are in disappointment and despair, this memory must be our guiding star. We can be this kind of people again. It’s in our blood, in the memory of our race, in the very DNA of our faith.

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At yesterday’s morning’s weekly forum of the Manila Overseas Press Club (MOPC), Agriculture Secretary Luis "Cito" Lorenzo Jr. gave an excellent report on what the agriculture department had achieved during the past two years of his stewardship. If you ask me, it sounded almost like a valedictory – since rumors continue to be aswhirl that Cito may be either moved sideways to another Cabinet post, or have his "resignation" accepted. (Another rumor is that he’s been assured of tenure until October.)

In response to a query on this at the forum, Secretary Lorenzo simply replied: "We all serve at the pleasure of the President." In short, Lorenzo is not clinging to his job – he’s done his part and will be ready to leave if that’s the way things shape up. The incessant whispering, gossip, and speculation about who’s coming and going in the Cabinet does not seem to bother him.

Who’re going, if he goes, to wield power in the Agriculture Department? Will it be Undersecretary Cesar "Babe" Drilon, brother of Senate President Franklin Drilon? Will it be the powerful insider, Undersecretary Jocelyn "Joc-joc" Bolante? He – yes, he – incidentally belongs to the Makati Central Rotary Club and hosted a happy party for his fellow Rotarians at their recent international conference in Osaka, Japan.

What about the "plunder" case being pursued by former Solicitor General Frank Chavez against officials in the Aggie department – which might reach "higher" levels?

This is a society in which the worst is suspected of everyone – whether innocent or guilty. In this, naturally, we’re not unique.

I’ve already read seven books condemning US President George "Dubya" Bush and his "Vulcans", calling them crooks, oil-grabbers, sleazy characters, liars, and plotters.

Here are a few of their titles:

The Lies of George W. Bush Subtitle, Mastering the Politics of Deception by David Corn (Crown Publishers, Random House, New York 2003). Corn is the Washington editor of The Nation, and appears on Fox News.

The Book on Bush: How George W. (Mis)leads America, by New York Times bestselling authors Eric Alterman and Mark Green (Viking/Penguin Books, New York, N.Y., 2001).

Bush League Diplomacy: How the Neoconservatives are Putting the World at Risk, by Craig R. Eisendrath and Melvin A. Goodman (Prometheus Books, Amherst, New York, 2004). Eisendrath, a former diplomat, is a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy in Washington DC; an adjunct professor at Temple University, and editor of "National Insecurity: US Intelligence after the Cold War." Goodman is a former CIA officer, and a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy; a professor of international security at the National War College, and an adjunct professor of Johns Hopkins University.

American Dynasty, subtitled, How the Bush Clan Became the World’s Most Powerful and Dangerous Family, by Kevin Phillips (Allen Lane, an imprint of Penguin Books, London, 2004). Phillips, a former strategist in the Nixon White House, is a regular contributor to the Los Angeles Times, and National Public Radio, and also writes for Harper’s Magazine and TIME. He wrote an earlier book, The Emerging Republican Majority, prophesying the shift in American voting patterns, from which the Bushes subsequently benefited.

The Price of Loyalty, subtitled, George W. Bush, the White House and the Education of Paul O’Neil, by Pulitzer Prize-winner Ron Suskind (Simon & Schuster, New York, London, Toronto, 2004). Suskind, The Wall Street Journal’s national affairs reporter from 1993 to 2000 won his Pulitzer for Feature Writing at the Journal, and now writes for Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, and other publications. His brilliant opus on Bush, though, seems partially flawed by being influenced to a large extent by the sour-graping of ex-US Treasury Secretary O’Neil, for two years the Bush administration’s ranking economic official and a principal of the National Security Council. O’Neil was fired by Bush. Rather than the price of loyalty, many passages here appeared to be better described as the bitter fruit of disloyalty. Oh well, it’s from the gripers that we sometimes glean nuggets of useful "insider" information.

None of the above-mentioned authors are lightweights. When it comes to thrashing, vivisecting, and bad-mouthing their leaders, Americans are even more malicious, nasty, and barbed-tongued than we are. Poor Dubya. With the US elections coming in November, things are going to get worse for him – not better. There’ll be a dozen more books, plus thousands of articles "exposing" Dubya and company, and hitting both above and below the belt.

Already, in yesterday’s Financial Times, the influential London-based daily, a lead article with frontpage tagline (in the streamer) concerned the "Decline of the Vulcans: Bush’s Team has run out of Vision."

Appearing just across the editorial page inside, the six-column article by James Mann was illustrated with a cartoon, showing Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, and Paul Wolfowitz sitting dejected in a wrecked Humvee in what appeared to be the Iraqi desert. (Somehow, the cartoonist forgot the other Vulcans, Dubya’s inner circle of advisers – namely, State Sec. Colin Powell and rotund Richard Armitage.) Mann, of course, is no lightweight either. A senior writer-in-residence at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, he’s the author of the recent bestseller. Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet. (Viking, London, 2004).

Gee whiz. Mann just published his book on their Rise; now he’s already writing of their Decline.

The fall from grace of the Vulcans, the Bush team, has been precipitous in this light.

GMA should count herself lucky. She gets brickbats daily in the press, but we Pinoys and Pinays are not such prolific – and vitriolic – book writers.