Why should we sound like we’re panicking over Abu Sayyaf ‘threats’?

When Police Director General and Chief PNP Arturo C. Lomibao joined us yesterday morning at the Tuesday Club, shortly before he rushed off to a security conference, we reminded him of his pledge.

Art had promised, when he was "in-waiting" to be appointed the nation’s top policeman, that he would – as one of his most urgent priorities – "solve" the murders of journalists and crack down on the slowpokes and police connivers who have been hindering the resolution of those cases.

Now (see Page One), the International Press Institute (I.P.I.), the global network of editors, media executives and leading journalists, has confirmed that the Philippines is "a prime example of (the) blanket impunity that smothers all attempts at investigation . . ."

The I.P.I. examined 191 countries and territories for its 2004 Review, and noted "the overwhelming failure of the authorities in many parts of the world to properly investigate and prosecute the killers of journalists."

The fact that our country was singled out by one of the world’s most influential press organizations – the same group that had honored the late Joe Burgos with its half-century award as a "Hero of Press Freedom" – for condemnation should be a cause for shame.

As the I.P.I. points out, "since the country gained ‘independence’ (from Marcos dictatorship I’ll have to explain) in 1986 some 56 journalists have been killed including 12 in 2004." The I.P.I. declared: "Nobody has been convicted of these killings."

Indeed, in a speech delivered before the I.P.I. world congress and 44th General Assembly in Seoul, South Korea, in May 1995, I had pointed out that journalists remain increasingly at risk.

I recalled, on that forum, our I.P.I. 42nd General Assembly held in Venice (Italy), at which I had also been one of the speakers. I remembered that our then exiting I.P.I. Director Peter Galliner had just deplored the fact that 40 journalists and media persons had already by then been killed covering the terrible little war in Bosnia-Hercegovina.

"No matter how ‘little’ a war may be, it is still war," I told the Seoul assembly. "In peacetime, too, many Filipino editors, reporters, and publishers – mostly from the ‘provincial’ press – fall in the frontline of the struggle to report honest news or express fearless views. During the more than a dozen years in which we languished in the darkness of Marcos’ martial law regime, 32 journalists and editors were killed, a large number of them by ‘salvaging’, which was a quaint term developed to describe how men and women were kidnapped at gunpoint by military assassins, then found murdered in a meadow or in a creek, their wrists bound behind them with wire or twine. How tyranny corrupts the dictionary, while savaging human life!"

"On the other hand, during ‘freedom time’ – meaning Mrs. (Cory) Aquino’s Presidency – 27 journalists and editors were also ambushed, assassinated or murdered in a span of only six years. We Filipino newsmen are not the darlings, obviously, of the insurance profession."

Things have not changed since my complaint to the world assembly ten years ago.

It’s time General Lomibao demonstrated there’s a new cop in town.

* * *

Another thing that puzzles us, our Club members told General Lomibao, is why our PNP and our government has been making "scare" headlines predicting coming Abu Sayyaf and other "terrorists" attacks on churches, public places, indeed, anywhere in Metro Manila this Holy Week.

"Have our police now become the propaganda arm of the ASG terrorists and the Jemaah Islamiyah?" We asked. Even before the Bagong Diwa fight which resulted in the deaths of 23 resisting inmates, Abu Sayyaf terrorist chieftain Abu Solaiman had been bragging, following the Valentine’s Day Makati bus bombing, and the bomb-attacks in General Santos and Davao City, that more "attacks" were forthcoming.

Why the heck are we pushing the panic-button on retaliation by the Abu’s for the slaying of their brethren in the BJMP prison "break" try? Sanamagan. One newspaper even tried to call those Islamic thugs – kidnappers, rapists, torturers and murderers – martyrs"! Give us a break.

Lomibao replied that the PNP honestly considers the "ASG-JI" threat as serious. Piecing together facts and new information, he insisted, "we know that the ASG-JI are up to something."

He enumerated as the "core group" of the threat seven members of "the ASG-JI-RSRM" who had been instructed by Abu Solaiman to attack "soft targets" in Metro Manila and some key cities of Mindanao.

These are:

• Hilarion Del Rosario Santos, Jr. alias Ahmed Santos, leader of the RSRM; Amilhamsa Ajijul alias Alex Alvarez, a suspect in the October 2002 bombing in Zamboanga City; Abu Haisham, an ASG member who recently trained at the Jemaah Islamiyah training camp in Mt. Cararao; Abu Omar, a Tausug ASG member; Abu Tarik, an ASG explosives expert trained by the Jemaah Islamiyah; Abu Zaid, a Yakan ASG member under Abu Tarik; and Abu Yasin, an Indonesian JI member.

The PNP chief urged that any information regarding these persons, or other unusual activities by unknown individuals in your communities must be reported immediately to authorities thru Patrol 117 or TXT PNP 2920.

I still maintain that those "scare" reports and headlines are unsettling to our population. Surely, the police must field their 15,000 cops to guard against terrorist assault in Metro, and remain on "three-tiered intelligence alert" (Lomibao’s word) all over our archipelago but why sow fear among our people, particularly those rushing home for Holy Week devotions – or, for vacation leisure, as the case may be?

Terrorism thrives on fear. The irony is that it is our authorities who’re creating that very atmosphere of anxiety in this particularly vulnerable week.

* * *

It was disgustingly unfair for a newspaper (not The STAR) to have hinted that the heroic policeman, PO3 Abel Areola, from Santa Maria, Ilocos Sur, might have been killed by "friendly fire", not the bullets of the defiant hold-outs in prison, the Abu Sayyaf gangsters. The newspaper had quoted a "source" who claimed Areola had been shot (or even slain by a rifle grenade) fired by his fellow Special Action Force troopers.

I confronted PNP Chief Lomibao on this insinuation, and he grimaced in distaste, then showed me a copy of the official report of the "Crime Laboratory", particularly regarding the Firearms Identification Report Number: FAID-046-2005, dated 0605 Hrs., March 16, 2005.

"Killed by one of his fellow policemen?" Lomibao exclaimed. "That’s complete nonsense! A total falsehood!"

The Report he handed this writer contained "microscopic examination and comparison" of all the bullets fired and cartridge cases.

In the case of the slain policeman, who had posthumously been awarded the hero’s medal, it’s clear he had been slain in the assault on the entrenched ASG hold-outs, the lone fatality of the police SAF team.

The Report stated: "d. The caliber .45 fired bullet marked ‘AA’ (recovered from the body of one Abelardo Areola) and caliber .45 fired cartridge cases marked ‘AS-4’, ‘AS-5’. ‘AS-14’, ‘AS-15’, ‘AS-18’, ‘AS-23’, ‘AS-24’, ‘AS-26’, ‘AS-28’, ‘AS-30’, ‘AS-32’, and ‘G-129-9’ were fired from the caliber .45 Shooter SAM 1911 pistol with serial number 02980622 (Firearm licensed/registered to Rogelio Perez dela Cruz, per certification from FED, CGS dated March 16, 2005)."

It will be recalled that poor Dela Cruz had been one of the jail wardens grabbed and killed by the Abu Sayyaf would-be jailbreakers, and his personally-licensed firearms seized by the ASG detainees. As the bullets fired demonstrate, the Abu Sayyaf hoodlums fired many rounds from that gun in trying to fight off the police SAF troopers who punched in to recover control of the barricaded prison. One of those bullets proved fatal to policeman Areola.

This should reassure his grieving father, Abelardo Sr., and mother Leticia, that their 25-year old son had died a hero in the line of duty, not by some "mistake" or accident on the part of his fellow policemen.

I hadn’t known Areola came from Santa Maria, Ilocos Sur, in my home province. I fondly remember Santa Maria, because as a young teenager, I had once spent a two- weeks vacation there with relatives. The acting Parish priest in those days had been Father Crispin Crisologo, an old family friend, and I had to climb those dozens of steps to serve his Mass, early every morning all the way up to the Church which stood on a hill. (There must have been a hundred steps, or so it seemed – we used to call the Church, wryly, "Thrice High"!)

I can only say to PO3 Abel Areola, God bless him! He was a brave Saluyot, one who makes us, his province-mates proud! As they used to say in Spain, "the salt of the earth!"