Dishonored

The whole world gave us a flustered look after DFA Undersecretary Rafael Seguis announced, on Al Jazeera television, that Manila was going to withdraw its small contingent in Iraq "as soon as possible."

Foreign Secretary Delia Albert subsequently issued a statement that Seguis was speaking with "the foreknowledge and authority of the Philippine government".

Moments after Seguis made his astounding statement, I was deluged with calls from foreign media organizations seeking clarification. That statement made before Al Jazeera, and carried worldwide by CNN and other similar entities, clashed sharply with the position maintained by President Arroyo the past few days since the drama over a Filipino hostage began to unfold.

Just the other day, the US praised President Arroyo for her tough stance in the face of a searing hostage crisis. Now it seems her government was flip-flopping badly as a minor tempest brewed, induced largely by the assiduous and cynical street action by the domestic leftist groups and the hysterical tone of local media coverage.

I received a stream of calls, as well, from friends who were well versed in the delicate details of handling highly emotional situations such as now pertains in the case of Angelo de la Cruz. The most consistent theme in their unsolicited advisories was that it was a bad move to leave the crisis in the domain of the Department of Foreign Affairs.

The DFA, they said, is a heavily traumatized institution in this case. It lost its secretary in 1995 amidst an emotional storm that broke out after the execution of Flor Contemplacion in Singapore. The trauma will incline it to save itself first, even at the sacrifice of policy consistency.

Media coverage of the Angelo de la Cruz is filled with commonplace opinion makers and leftist spokesmen pushing a concerted effort to bludgeon the Philippine government position and force it to a posture of dishonor.

I was annoyed, the other day, when one television station showed extended footage of the denizens of Mexico, Pampanga complaining about government’s management of information regarding the de la Cruz incident. They demanded that they be immediately informed of every minor development and told exactly what our negotiators were up to.

Good grief, not even the highest officials of the land are as updated as the neighbors of de la Cruz want to be.

Several opinion writers took issue with the "blackout" maintained by government and, of course, joined the chorus demanding that we pull out our troops now in order to appease the hostage-takers.

What is wrong with that picture?

Everything.

To begin with, "blackout" is probably an unfortunate term used by government no less. There is, in actuality, no "blackout" because media is not prohibited from covering the event, using whatever information they could get their hands on. For its part, government maintains what is standard operating procedure in a crisis like this one: limit all announcements so as not to fuel speculations that could undermine sensitive negotiations going on under intense time pressure.

Secondly, no self-respecting government should allow itself to be blackmailed by terrorists. Contrary to what some self-styled "political analysts" say, the life of one man could not be more important than the honor of the nation.

The Japanese recently provided a classic case of how a situation like this should be handled. When two Japanese men were taken hostage in Iraq, the authorities in Tokyo browbeat their captured countrymen on television for ignoring instructions and venturing where they should not have. When the two hostages were finally released, they bowed low before the cameras as soon as they landed in Tokyo, apologizing profusely for the inconvenience they caused their country.

Thirdly, no self-respecting government should be seen appeasing terrorists. This is first of all a matter of honor. It also incurs the moral hazard of encouraging more of the same acts of terror since this seems to be rewarded by surrender of sovereign states. It is also the best way to contain the potential damage.

Consider this: what if we agree to pull out our troops to please the terrorists and the rascals, just to spite us and rub in the dishonor, proceed to execute their captive nevertheless?

We lose face the first time because we bowed to terrorist demands. Then we lose face again by standing helplessly as the terrorists exercise their grotesque options by executing the victim anyway.

By surrendering to the terrorists, we court the worse case outcome. In fact, we encourage it by our own lack of courage, our own lack of honor.

If we behave so ignominiously, the terrorists might as well ask our most senior officials to prance around naked in the streets as a way of pleading for the life of a countryman, and also as a way of affirming their own perverted sense of power brought about by the ability to murder helpless captives.

By softening our stance, we walk into a minefield. Everything slips out of the hands of our negotiators.

Those stupid leftist agitators, exploiting the emotional drama to cynically score political points just for the heck of it, are doing something patently unpatriotic: they are undermining our own government’s ability to negotiate from a position of strength in defense of our nation’s honor.

We all wish Angelo de la Cruz will survive this ordeal and return to the arms of his loved ones. In order to improve his chances, we will have to behave smartly. We will have to negotiate with all technical competence.

If we all seem to be crumbling, arguing among ourselves, with sympathizers of the terrorists enjoying a commanding position in the nexus of public discussion of this case, then all is lost.

The terrorists, as is the normal course in situations like this one, have forced the hostage Angelo to demean himself, pleading for his life by asking his government to dishonor itself by reversing policy in the face of blackmail. That I can understand.

What I could not grasp is how Filipinos here, who are not hostages themselves, could march about in the streets undermining our own negotiating position and asking our own government to demean itself by surrendering to cri-minals. They are party to holding our whole nation hostage to murderers.