Will Tokyo rearm? Probably – for Japan, it’s all over but for the anointing of Abe-sensei

I’m surprised that there’s not much news coming out of Europe regarding the travels and achievements of our tireless La Presidenta. But there’s much movement over here: the British Embassy just issued 120 visas for Filipino politicians and business executives – all eager to rush to London. The Pinoy brigade is obviously not fazed by the Islamic terrorist plot – not completely defanged possibly – to plant liquid-based bombs on airliners crossing the Atlantic.

The pilgrims who’re emplaning for England are not rushing to London "to visit the Queen" as the old nursery rhyme goes. They’re off to join La Emperadora when she arrives there from Brussels, where she is, right now.

When you consider that La Gloria brought along with her only four Cabinet members, namely Foreign Affairs Secretary Bert Romulo, Presidential Press Secretary and Spokesman Ignacio "Toting" Bunye, National Security Chairman Norberto Gonzales – and, of course, Presidential Chief of Staff Mike Defensor, the exodus of would-be camp followers from Manila to greet GMA in London shows that many people, even in these hard times, can still afford the trip. They perhaps want to see and be seen – or, maybe, shop at Harrods, Selfridges – and, oh my gosh, Harvey Nichols. That Harvey Nicks certainly puts a dent in every pocket – when you could get almost the same, without the toney label naturally, in the local tiangge or in Divisoria.

The chances are, it must be said, that what you get at Knightsbridge or Sloane square, or Belgravia, carries the tag, "Made in China." Cheaper in Shanghai, where the labels read Prada, DKNY, Hermes, Versace, Giorgio Armani, Coco Chanel, etc. Not only the Devil wears Prada in Shanghai or Beijing.

One tailoring floor in Shanghai’s First Department Store on Nanjing Road at least honestly labels its suits, "Geodi Amoni."

I think, for our economy’s sake, La Gloria ought to caution her "admirers" against too openly following her around, thus conserving our dollars, British pounds sterling and euros. However, too many of our politicians have the travel itch. If it isn’t some inter-parliamentary conference, the excuse is to help our peripatetic Chief Executive put on a grand showing.

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The Senate has arrested Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) Chairman Camilo Sabio for having "snubbed" its committee hearings.

The warrant-servers, however, were not able to locate PCGG Commissioners Ricky Abcede, Narciso Nario, Nicasio Conti and Tereso Javier. That’s strange. In the case of Ricky A., in the past two weeks, we’ve seen him everywhere – from our wreathe-laying at the statue of M.H. del Pilar during the Atienza-cum-Samahang Plaridel rites in Manila, to last Monday night’s Manila Overseas Press Club "Night of the Generals" dinner-forum in the Hotel Inter-Continental.

If the Senate is earnestly holding its inquiries "in aid of legislation," there’s only one conclusion to be drawn. If legislation to do it is necessary, then let Congress act to abolish the PCGG. It was created during the Cory regime to "protect" the rightful owners from being cheated by the "evil" Marcos people – and to do this, the PCGG "sequestered" hundreds of corporations and banking institutions. Alas, PCGG "nominees" instead of saving the true investors, sucked the sequestered companies dry. All in the pursuit of "good government" – as its title implies?

In any event, after so many decades, the PCGG’s writ ought to have expired years ago. But it continues to operate, almost – to invoke the buzzword of the year – with impunity.

When a horse was crippled, it used to be axiomatic in the old American West, that "the poor crittur" was shot to put it out of its misery. It’s time the PCGG was shot down, to put the Filipino public – and the long-suffering private owners of sequestered firms – out of their misery.

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It’s all over, it seems, but the anointing.

With Japan’s tough Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi (he with the fantastic hair-do) retires from office by not seeking a new lease on leadership of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) next September 20, everybody expects his all-but-handpicked successor, his Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe, 51, to step into his shoes.

In sum, Abe is running so far ahead in the surveys, that his rivals, Foreign Minister Taro Aso and Finance Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki, 61, are ready to concede that it’s all over but the Banzais.

Indeed, Koizumi rescued the doddering LDP from an expected electoral setback when he took power in April 2001, on a platform pledging to fix a moribund economy and shake up the staid LDP itself. In five years, he succeeded in the first promise, by abandoning consensus rule and striking out on his own – something unheard of in the habatsu (faction) controlled governments of postwar Japan.

As for the LDP, Koizumi succeeded somewhat, but Abe may slide back into habatsu politics in his effort to consolidate his position. His advantage is that he is a political blueblood, the grandson of the late founder-member of the party, the powerful Prime Minister Nobosuke Kishi, while his granduncle, Eisaku Sato, also served as Prime Minister – and, to boot, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for signing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty – a significant and symbolic move for a nation which had been the first "victim" of the atom bomb.

Abe’s papa-san, too, whom this writer knew, Shintaro Abe, was a ranking LDP politician, and a Foreign Minister in the government of the late Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone. (As journalists, we used to quip about old Yasuhiro that he was Naka-SONY – but that’s because he was buddy-buddy with our other friend, SONY’s genius-President, the late Akiro Fujita, the gentleman who "invented" the Walkman).

Anyway – whither Japan under Abe-Sensei?

TIME Magazine’s latest issue (Sept. 18) indeed, put him on its cover with the huge blurb: "WHO IS SHINZO ABE?" As TIME pointed out, critics dub him "a dangerous nationalist," while fans hail him as "a strong leader for an increasingly assertive nation."

One thing is sure: If Koizumi, his mentor, raised hackles in China and South Korea by insisting on officially visiting the Yasukuni Shrine (which honors the Japanese war dead of all its wars, but also 14 Class A war criminals whose "spirits" are enshrined in the Shrine also with 2 million other fallen soldiers), you can be sure that feisty Abe will do Koizumi one better.

Koizumi deliberately celebrated the 61st anniversary of the end of the War last August 15 by visiting the Shrine in coat-tails and morning trousers. Abe may seek to amend the Japanese Constitution – to enable Japan to rearm to meet the threat of North Korea’s "missiles" and, probably, the spectre of rising China.

For the Japanese know China will never forgive Japan for the "rape of Nanjing" or for years of occupation and ravishment, following the Marco Polo bridge "incident." Neither will Korea forget its colonization and harsh exploitation by the Japanese.

So why kowtow to their anger? Abe’s rightwing followers chorus.

Abe will, at least, TIME predicts, "tinker" with the Constitution to get Japan a more aggressive military, rather than sheepishly maintain "Self-Defense Forces."

I gave a speech in Tokyo, at the United Nations University there, at a forum on "Japan’s Role in Security and Regional Cooperation. This was in August 1988. In my address, which surprised many in the Japanese and foreign audience (who knew from my bioperae how our family had lost many members and bitterly fought the Japanese Imperial forces), I urged that Japan be permitted to rearm and play a more active role in regional security. In an article on the conference, The Economist of London identified me by name and called me "surprisingly forgiving." I had argued that no nation, whatever its crimes in war, should be forced to spend an eternity on its knees.

The Japanese "crime", in contrast to the postwar Germans, was to obfuscate its wartime atrocities and depredations in its textbooks – and this is why the world views any Japanese move to strengthen its military with suspicion. Yet change is inevitable – thanks to the demented North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s missile-rattling, for one.

As for the postwar Constitution, it wasn’t written by the Japanese but by the occupying American "shogun," Gen. Douglas MacArthur in just six days. Big Mac and his aides drew up that Constitution in which Article IX forever renounces war and vows that maintaining a military will never be allowed. Never is too long a time.

If the Constitution were amended, don’ tell me the world’s Number Two economic power couldn’t become a military power in a flash. In 1957, a resurgent Japan built more ships than any nation on earth, faster and cheaper. Aircraft carriers, missile cruisers, jet warplanes could be rolling off the assembly lines – in a flash – faster than you could pronounce, "DoCoMo."

In short, beware of Abe. Japan, again though it is, can still flew muscles of steel.

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Perhaps – to know Mr. Abe – it may be appropriate to look back at his grandfather. This is what I wrote in The Sunday Times on May 4, 1958, when I was a newspaperman covering Tokyo:

I spoke of the clique which had propelled Japan on the "disastrous path of military aggrandizement", some of whose bureaucrats had been retained by the MacArthur postwar government.

"The symbol of the triumph and resurrection of this singularly unaltered clique is Prime Minister Nobisuke Kishi. He is a product of the system: pliable, pragmatic, and practical. From his entry into the government service shortly after graduation from the department of law of Tokyo Imperial University in 1920, Kishi rose, rank on rank, to become on October 18, 1941, at the age of 46, minister of commerce and industry in the Tojo Cabinet."

"As such, he signed the declaration of war against the US and the Allies, became Assistant Minister (to Tojo) of military production . . . Interned as a suspected war criminal in Sugamo prison at war’s end, he was released on December 24, 1948, and emerged in 1952 as an elected Liberal Party member of the House of Representatives."

"The whispered nickname which he bears in the multitudinous coffee shops and private clubs that dot Tokyo and Osaka, ‘sotsu ga nai", shows that the Japanese themselves have passed judgement on the temper of his administration. For ‘sotsu ga nai’ not only means that Kishi has an answer for every question, but that he follows no principle save that of convenience and advantage."

True, he gladhanded and made friends everywhere, particularly with the United States. Sotsu ga nai – after all.

What is incoming Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s political DNA then? Like grandpa’s – or is he different? We wait to be enlightened in the weeks to come.