Hostage to politics

After the terrorist attack in London last year, British security officers exchanged notes with counterparts in Australia, identifying about 30 matters that they would have handled differently had they been aware of the threat.

The British are used to terrorist bombings, having battled the Irish Republican Army decades before the attacks in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001. British laws were crafted many years ago to deal with the threat posed by the IRA and other violent extremists.

Yet after the attack last year, the British further tightened those laws, fully aware that the state needed new legal weapons to prevent the loss of lives. And they continue to fine-tune the laws in the wake of the recent foiled plot to blow up US-bound planes flying out of London.

Many other countries are reviewing their security laws or crafting new ones, with the objective of preventing a terrorist attack. I hesitate to use "preemption," which has become a dirty word since the US attack on Iraq, but that is in fact what governments are doing.

Countries that have experienced suicide bombings are particularly concerned about the period in which to prevent an attack. Once a suicide bomber has made up his mind, it is in the interest of his handler to make sure that the bomber does not get cold feet and change his mind; the planned attack must be executed swiftly.

In that brief period, how quickly and decisively can the state move to prevent the bomber from carrying out the attack?

Both Britain and Australia now have so-called control orders, which impose tough restrictions on terrorist suspects. Those control orders were approved despite initial protests from human rights groups, after a system of accountability was built into the new security laws to prevent abuses.

In our country, there is no similar sense of urgency to craft more legal weapons to protect lives, although Islamic extremists have killed hundreds of Filipinos and perpetrated other atrocities that have seriously set back development in Mindanao over the past decade.

* * *

No one is talking about control orders in the Philippines. No one likes control and no one likes being ordered around in this country.

After the worst maritime terrorist attack in the world that left over 100 people dead — the bombing of a SuperFerry in Manila Bay in 2004 — dogs were deployed to sniff out explosives, and all bags, packages and cargo were subjected to close inspection before being allowed on any vessel.

Similar inspections continue to be carried out in most other crowded public places such as shopping malls, cinemas and overhead railway systems.

The public can only hope that those security guards actually know what they are looking for in an age where powerful bombs can be assembled from components brought in separately by different people. How do you deal with murderous zealots who can fashion deadly weapons from components hidden in hair gel and toothpaste?

Five years after 9/11, the world has moved on from anthrax scares to regarding milk and moisturizer as potential lethal weapons.

It’s a conflict where international rules on conventional warfare do not apply, where every civilian is a target regardless of age, sex, race or even religion, although all the perpetrators invoke Islam as their inspiration.

Five years after 9/11, Iraq is a mess, Afghanistan is backsliding, and George W. Bush is talking about Islamic fascism.

Is the world a safer place? We tend to take with a grain of salt claims of terrorist attacks foiled. The only gauge is the passage of each day without an attack. By this measure, the American response has been adequate; there has been no terrorist attack on US soil since 9/11.

* * *

In contrast, since 9/11, Islamic extremists operating in the Philippines have bombed not just a SuperFerry but also a packed bus in Makati on Valentine’s Day, shopping malls outside Metro Manila, the Davao International Airport and the city’s port. Jemaah Islamiyah, blamed for the attacks together with the Abu Sayyaf, continues to train recruits in Mindanao on the ways of terrorism.

Perhaps we’re used to living dangerously, with bombs being set off on planes, buses, airports and the LRT. After every deadly attack, we don’t hear anyone asking, "What could we have done differently?" Anything beyond the deployment of bomb-sniffing canines and the inspection of packages takes too much effort. Biometric identification is too expensive for us.

We lie back in blissful ignorance or benign neglect, until the soldiers of hatred and violence claim the lives of someone we know, or someone we love.

Control orders? We cannot even stop the entry of undocumented aliens into our shores through Tawi-Tawi and Sulu, where soldiers are forced to double as immigration and Customs officers to screen foreigners because civilian government personnel are scared to be assigned in no-man’s land.

There’s talk of a continuing influx of Indonesians and Malaysians in Mindanao, some of whom could be part of the Jemaah Islamiyah terror network, but we can’t be sure because many of the arrivals are undocumented. How then can we deal with the JI threat?

* * *

The right to life is basic. What are we doing to protect that right?

The unconventional warfare being waged by extremists requires new laws that aim to prevent a deadly attack. Other countries have passed laws that make it illegal to associate or train with terror groups. Wiretapping laws have been rewritten to take into account advances in information and communication technology. Security officers can apprehend not just terror suspects but even people who allow their phones to be used by terrorists.

In this new war, security officers must deal with probabilities and assess whether there is clear and present danger of an impending attack.

Safeguards are incorporated into the new laws to prevent abuses and make the state accountable to the public.

Such legal weapons require a high level of public trust in government — something that this administration, unfortunately for proponents of the anti-terror bill — has squandered in recent years.

There cannot be any room for complacency in the face of a continuing deadly threat. Like most other matters in this country, however, the anti-terror bill has been stuck in the deep mud of politics.

Admittedly, politics is ugly in most other countries. But in other parts of the world, politicians know when to set aside differences to protect that most basic of rights, the right to life.

Not so in this country, where even public safety is held hostage to political warfare.