Another sneak attack, not unlike ‘Pearl Harbor’

Yesterday – the Feast of the Immaculate Conception – was the anniversary of the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 which triggered off the Pacific War, and resulted in the Japanese invasion of the Philippines.

We don’t decry this Day of Infamy (as US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt called it) very much anymore, having long ago . . . well, forgiven Japan for attacking us in a war and deadly occupation which cost one million Filipino lives – a terrible tragedy since our population was barely 17 million at the time. Why, unlike South Korea and China, we’re not even resentful of Japan’s Prime Minister Koichiro Koizumi insisting on visiting the Yasukuni Shrine to pay tribute to Japan’s war dead, which include the major war criminals. "Yasukuni . . . what?" Most Filipinos ask, then shrug and forget about it. Philippine-Japanese Friendship Day is soon to be launched again, too.

But yesterday, to this writer’s surprise, I found another sneaky, and I mean sneaky attack in progress. A group of Japanese arrived led by a prominent retired Japanese Ambassador (I know his name, but I ain’t telling yet), a former MITI official, and other former officials headed straight for Malacañang (therefore they’ve got an appointment?) with a big-money offer to buy our historic "heritage" residence in Tokyo’s swankiest Kudan District – an elegant mansion on a priceless 5,000-square meter lot – so their real estate group can tear it down and build a skyscraper on the plot. Whaat? Sanamagan and No Gor Ja Nai ka!

Is this bunch scheduled to see the President, or will they start with Executive Secretary Ed Ermita? I don’t believe GMA will be so gullible as to succumb to their wiles and their "juicy" offer. This is no ordinary piece of real estate we’re talking about like those already sold-off Kobe properties. This Heritage building belonging to the Filipino people was the residence and property acquired by the late Japanese-sponsored wartime President Jose P. Laurel in 1944 and occupied by Jorge Vargas during that period. Today, as the official residence of our Philippine Ambassadors to Japan, it is the most beautiful and historic Embassy residence we have abroad.

The residence was famous and historic even before our country acquired it in 1944, during the war. Constructed in 1934, it is the lovely residence in which the internationally-known Yoko Ono (the widow of John Lennon, the renowned composer and singer who was an ex-Beatle) grew up since it had belonged to her aristocratic family. Yoko Ono, although her family no longer owns it, has kept watch over it, striving constantly for its preservation as one does an irreplaceable heirloom. She even addressed her concerns to President Macapagal-Arroyo – and in 2003 received a letter from GMA herself who wrote her: "I will not sell it!" I guess that’s plain enough in English as it should be in Japanese.

Yet stranger things have happened when enough cash is dangled. GMA must beware being given the bums’ rush by her advisers and underlings. Her ratings have just crashed again. She doesn’t need another wave of anger, demonstrations and protests over this kind of "sale" to erupt against her and her administration.

She must say to this "Hello Tomadachi" bunch: No sale.

* * *

The United States Embassy, I see, has reopened for business. The "plausible threat" seems to have mysteriously vanished – just as mysteriously as it emerged.

It turns out police "intelligence" had "uncovered" this threat against the American Embassy and other Embassies, blaming a series of "scheduled" bombings being mounted by the rebel New People’s Army. But as the NPA’s media star, Communist rebel spokesman Ka Roger Rosal scoffed on the air yesterday: "That ain’t us." If those "enlightened warriors", he jested, want to do any good, they’d better join the NPA who, according to him, are more enlightened.

This nonsensical "plot" got a number of people jittery, smeared our reputation already badly tattered even more, and got us a spate of even more indignant travel advisories.

On diplomatic row, some are already whispering that the "threat" might have been a ploy by Administration spin-doctors and demented strategists to divert attention from any "Hello Garci" revelations. Surely, Ronnie Puno wouldn’t have bombed his own car to promote such a stupid project, like the "ambush" of JPE’s car which helped give Old Macoy an excuse to declare martial law in 1972.

In any event, such alarums don’t do the Philippines, or GMA for that matter, any good. The police intelligence agents had better produce more evidence, or arrested NPAs to prove the idea of NPA "involvement." But this reminds us of the days of the anti-Huk campaign (the fight to crush the rebellion of the NPA’s predecessors, the Hukbong Magpapalaya ng Bayan, or HMB. Everytime an HMB cadre was slain in battle by the PC or Army, the subsequent government press release too often promoted the dead insurgent to "Huk Commander."

Every threat, as I’ve said before, even if it sounds looney, must be taken seriously, especially after 9/11. But no manufactured "threats," please.