Another hoax in a land of hoaxes

It was embarrassing, but it wasn’t unexpected. From the start, many suspected a hoax when the story first surfaced that two Japanese soldiers who had been hiding in the jungles around General Santos City had been spotted. The story of the alleged World War II "stragglers", however, had attracted such interest in Japan that 100 Japanese journalists flew into the country and onwards to GenSan, as well as a swarm of diplomats from Tokyo.

Yesterday, I saw some of those diplomats looking tired and disappointed as they staggered – still correctly attired in mandatory dark suit and tie – into the lobby of a Makati hotel. The journalists, too, were packing up to fly home.

The two stragglers who were supposed to have belonged to the 30th Division of the Imperial Army turned out to be a mirage, a will o’ the wisp if you will. For a while, some Japanese media like the big-circulation Mainichi Shimbun (literally, "Daily Newspaper") had churned out potboilers alleging that former separatist guerrillas had kidnapped the two Japanese stragglers and were demanding $232,000 or 25 million yen in ransom for them. The newspaper quoted a Japanese businessman who promptly disappeared himself. The Tokyo Shimbun for its part alleged the two elderly hold-outs were scheduled to meet Japanese Embassy officials in a few days.

Neither of the two versions proved true. It’s now clear that there never were two Japanese stragglers. Some GenSan residents, interviewed on television, said that yarns about Japanese stragglers surface from time to time to "convince" would-be suckers that tales about hoards of hidden "Japanese gold" are true.

As PT Barnum once quipped: "There’s one born every minute." (He referred to suckers and gullible types, naturally). How do you say that in Japanese?

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Another stupid story which got too much play-up was the report that the Cuban government was asking the help of the Philippines in getting the United States to extradite one of their former operatives, previously on the payroll of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), for trial in Cuba.

What on earth did our government have to do with any moves to pressure the US to extradite an alleged "terrorist" to Cuba when this bozo, Cuban renegade Luis Posada Carriles, never came to Manila or operated here, or did anything which impacted on the Philippines, Why, we can’t even get Rod Strunk extradited back here to answer questions on the Nida Blanca murder case.

As for this guy Posada, who’s suspected of having blown up a Cuban airliner in October 1976, an act which killed 73 passengers and crew, he’s not our problem. We’ve got problems enough with our own homegrown terrorists, and those infiltrating into our archipelago from Malaysia and Indonesia, and have no time to worry about a Cuban-American "terrorist" whose dark deeds took place in another hemisphere almost a quarter of a century ago.

Why our own newspaper banner-headlined "RP IN A BIND ON CUBA REQUEST" yesterday, I must say, is completely mystifying to me – and I’m the Publisher of this newspaper. The truth is that we’re in no bind at all. It’s not and never was our problem. By all means, if Posada blew up that airliner and killed so many hapless victims he must be punished for his crime. Death by musketry or the gallows, if he’s found guilty, would be appropriate. But again, it’s neither within our power, nor in our interest to pursue this matter. It’s exhausting enough to be chasing our own terrorist enemies here and there.

Unlike the United States, for that matter, we’re not ambitious to become the world’s policeman. So, enough! Posada is somebody else’s problem. Jueteng is our problem.

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A Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey – done in December 2004 – has just been released. It records that 53 percent of Filipinos find "a great deal of corruption in the public sector." In the poll, one of our five fingered the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) and the Armed Forces of the Philippines as the two most corrupt.

As to the extent of corruption in the private sector, 37 percent say there is "a great deal of corruption," 35 percent say "a little," and 10 percent "none".

Those statistics speak for themselves.

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Unless she’s bent on taking revenge on Zamboanga City (GMA dismally lost in that Mindanao city to her late challenger, Fernando Poe Jr.) the President’s decision to move the headquarters of the Southern Command (SouthCom) of our Armed Forces from Zambo to Pulacan in Zamboanga del Sur doesn’t make sense. Pulacan – what? Or where?

Why transfer the SouthCom, which has been in Zamboanga City for the past 29 years to Pagadian City which has few facilities, no international airport, and no deepwater port? You’d think our government was deliberately trying to lose the "war" against the rebels in Mindanao.

Just to spite Zamboanga City for having voted "wrong" in the last Presidential elections? I hope not.

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Former Vice-President Teofisto "Tito" Guingona, if agrément is officially confirmed by Beijing this week, will assume his post as our Ambassador to the People’s Republic of China in early July.

In the meantime, he’ll be in town to help Foreign Affairs Secretary Bert Romulo celebrate with China’s Ambassador Wu Hongbo the 30th Anniversary of the opening of diplomatic relations between Manila and Beijing. The commemoration will be held next June 9 in the Manila Hotel.

May I belatedly thank Ambassador Wu for having hosted a dinner for me in his residence in Dasmariñas Village the other week, a few days after the visit of China’s President Hu Jintao.

Ambassador Wu, who comes from Shandong Province – his hometown is a few miles away from the birthplace of the greatest of Chinese sages, Confucius (Kung Futze) – is entirely fluent in English, having served in Britain, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and in other English speaking assignments.

He was, in fact, in the Department of Translation and Interpretation of the Foreign Affairs department 1983-87).

In 1998-99, he was Chief Representative of China, Joint Liaison Group between China and the United Kingdom of Great Britain (with the rank of Ambassador) and in 1999-2000 Deputy Director General of the Department of Western European Affairs. One of his most interesting assignments was as Director General (2000-2002) of the Department of Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 2002-2004, he was Deputy Special Commissioner for the Macao Special Administrative Region. If you want to know about Macao’s gambling casinos – from the governmental aspect, of course, not the gamblers’ – Ambassador Wu Hongbo is the man to see.

He once worked as an interpreter and translator with the British journalist from the Telegraph who copped the worldwide exclusive on the fall from power of the Gang of Five (originally known as the Shanghai Gang), led by Mao Zedong’s hardlining wife (Jiang Qing) and including her cohorts Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan and Wang Hongwen. Their arrest in 1976 ended almost ten years of violent "Cultural Revolution" and signaled the beginning of a new era for China. Thanks to Ambassador Wu’s work in helping him check out the "disappearance" of the four "Shanghai Gang" inquisitors, the London Telegraph correspondent (Nigel Waithe?) scooped even the international wire agencies on this hot story.

Also at the dinner was Counsellor and Consul General Guo Shaochun who apologized for the visa mix-up in my case, and said that the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China’s Visa Office had been transferred by him to the more convenient 2nd floor of the World Center at 330 Sen. Gil J. Puyat (Buendia) avenue in Makati from its Roxas boulevard site. There, both Ambassador Wu and Consul General Guao assured me, visa applicants can now be comfortably seated in air conditioned room, and their papers processed expeditiously.

The Consulate gets 600 or more visa applications per day.

In short, the Consulate promises there will be no more queuing under harsh circumstances when one applies for a visa.

With Guingona going to Beijing, our current Ambassador there, Willy Gaa will be returning to Los Angeles, as Consul General with the rank of Ambassador. When I was in L.A. the other week, local Filipinos were already expecting his return.

The present Consul General, Marciano Paynoor, may eventually end up as Chief Protocol Officer in Malacañang. This is because Ambassador Lingling Lacanlale, currently Palace Protocol Chief, Alikabok says, has asked President GMA to give her Vienna (Austria) as her diplomatic post.

This has upset the question of succession and accession in the Department of Foreign Affairs. Ms. Emily Lopez, the wife of Albertito Lopez, had originally been slated for Vienna. Where then can GMA and Bert Romulo put her? The scuttlebutt is that she may be put in Rome (The Quirinale) instead. What then happens to Ambassador Jose Abeto Zaide, more popularly known as Ambassador "Toto" Zaide who had already been nominated by the President herself in 2003 for the Ambassadorship Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Republic of Italy, with concurrent jurisdiction to Albania and San Marino?

And what of incumbent Ambassador Philip Lhuiller, who’s been doing a fine job there? Lhuiller was earlier believed to be scheduled to go to Paris, but now the buzz is that he’s being "offered" Buenos Aires (Argentina) or Caracas (Venezuela). Lhuiller, of course, speaks Spanish fluently, and has spoken French from childhood – but he’s not overjoyed at the prospect of South America. He’d much prefer Paris. But going there is getting more remote by the day.

Too many people want that post in the City of Light and Delight.