Editorial - "Nag-uwan na, gusto pang manudlay"

Smarting from the cavalcade of travel advisories issued against it be several western nations, the Philippines is taking its case to anyone who cares to listen, the latest of which is the UN Security Council.

The Philippines asked the Security Council to take "a balanced approach" to addressing international terrorism and urged all governments to "exercise due care and diligence" in issuing travel alerts.

It is not clear what the Philippines meant by all that verbiage. But judging by the position it took ever since the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, New Zealand, Canada and France issued their travel alerts, the PHL would rather that no travel alerts be issued at all.

The position is of course understandable. The Philippines looks at terrorism from an entirely different perspective. When it comes to being a target, the Philippines is not on an equal footing with western countries, even if it has had its own spate of attacks.

To the Philippines, whose economy continues to lag behind its neighbors in the region, the time it spends on worrying about terrorism is better spent scraping around the bottom of the global trade and investment barrel looking for crumbs to shore up its failing economic health.

Its allergy to anything remotely resembling a terror alert is rooted in the fear that a terror alert can scare away economic opportunities, a viewpoint that is the exact opposite of what the emerging realities are in the world.

Whether the Philippines likes it or not, terrorism has become a fixture of everyday life all over the world. But instead of being cowed, or keep on daydreaming like PHL, most nations have chosen to seize the bull by the horns and have adopted measures to secure themselves.

Travel alerts are precisely part of such measures. They warn their own nationals of any potential threat to their lives. Most nations understand the importance of these alerts and have taken comfort in the fact that alerts are signs that their governments are on their toes.

But the Philippines takes a different view. Instead of being reassured that the travel alerts of other nations can in fact work in favor of the Philippines' own security interests, it considers such alerts as damaging to its image. "Nag-uwan na, gusto pang manudlay."