EDITORIAL – The usual suspects?

Whoever fired grenades at the Makati offices of two of the so-called Big Three oil companies the other day should be made to crawl from Manila to the Bondoc peninsula where a communist rebel faction is based. There the culprits can be compelled, as pu-nishment for their mischief, to listen to a daylong propaganda lecture by rebel commander Gregorio Rosal.

We’ve seen several of these attacks on the headquarters of the major oil companies in recent years. Always the grenades are fired before dawn, when the offices are still closed and the chances of leaving casualties are low.

The attacks are obviously meant simply to scare and not to kill. But because they have been done so often, with the same MO, the scare factor has been greatly diminished. If someone is trying to destabilize the administration – or make it look like someone is trying – this is not the way to do it.

What these attacks do is give the oil companies another excuse to increase pump prices. For this alone the culprits deserve lynching. Security risks are factored into oil pricing; the terror threat and instability in major oil-exporting countries have fueled market speculation that has driven world prices of crude oil to record highs this year.

Foreigners may also take the attacks seriously and see further instability in this country. The administration will get much of the blame when investors shy away, but who suffers most when job opportunities disappear? Ordinary Filipinos, who in their desperation may believe Iraq is a better place than their own country.

Whodunit? No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks, which is in keeping with similar incidents in the past. Cops as usual are looking at communists, but those folks don’t go around lugging grenade launchers for use in Metro Manila. Who has grenade launchers in this country?

Answering that question may finally lead investigators to the suspects. No one has been arrested for any of the attacks on the oil companies. Authorities should dispel public suspicion that no one has been caught because cops never looked for a culprit.