Wanted: More stringent security measures

 I don’t why, but it seems that from the time the Aquino government took over Malacañang, they have been plagued by bus incidents. The first one was the Aug. 23rd bus hostage taking incident that led to the untimely deaths of 8 Hong Kong tourists in the hands of Senior Inspector Rolando Mendoza. It resulted in an international crisis, not to mention the national shame it brought to our country because of the keystone cop way the police handled this incident that was seen by millions on satellite TV.

 Last Tuesday just before 2:00 pm, a blast destroyed the Newman Goldliner bus with license plate TXJ-710 along EDSA corner Buendia Ave. close to the MRT station instantly killing 4 persons and wounding 14 other passengers. Initial investigations show that the Improvised Explosive Device (IED) used was a military mortal shell triggered by a Nokia 5310 cellphone. This means investigators would have to trace either a missing mortar shell or stores that sell old Nokia cellphones in order to find out who is the bomber.

 This bus bombing incident comes on the heels of the terror bombing of the Domodedovo International airport in Moscow that killed 35 people and injured 180 others. This means that there is a need for a heightened security alert not just around airports but even in bus stations, Light Rail Transit (LRT) and MRTs, including shopping malls. Because of this bus bombing, once more we shall see our security personnel on a heightened alert, but once the story leaves the front pages of our newspapers, we go back to our usual, casual and cool alert phase.

 We know that shopping mall guards inspect everyone who goes in the mall, especially cars, but in truth, it is not enough to spot a potential terrorist. Allow me to mention an incident in a shopping mall (I won’t name the mall) where I brought my car inside the parking lot. Before you get a parking stub, a security guard always asks you to open your boot or the back of your car. We, drivers, already know the ritual and dutifully open our boot and the guard merely peeks inside and shuts your boot and lets you go.

 My car just came from the shop and I had a large box of parts which I had not yet unloaded. The guard merely looked at my unmarked box and shut the boot. Since there were no cars behind me, I got down from the car and asked the security guard why he allowed me to go through without really inspecting the box. He merely shrugged his shoulders and said that they were not allowed to thoroughly inspect the backs of vehicles. I asked him, “What are you really looking for? A box emblazoned with explosives so that this would alert you to be more thorough?” He was embarrassed, but seemed helpless to do anything.

 Mind you, this incident happened a few years ago and the system has not changed. Security guards in our shopping malls or in some hotels do exactly the same thing. You can count ourselves lucky that potential saboteurs or terrorists have not exploited our security guards’ lackadaisical attitude even in times of heightened alerts.

 This brings me back to that infamous Oklahoma City bombing by Timothy McVeigh of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma on April 19, 1995, which killed 168 people including 9 children and injured 680 others and destroyed the building. It was the worst act of terrorism in American soil before the infamous 9/11 terror attacks of the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers.

 Timothy McVeigh (he was executed a few months before 9/11) used 108 bags of ammonium nitrate, an innocent looking fertilizer and cleverly put it in drums with liquid nitro methane and exploded it beside the building. If our security guards were to see this type of explosive entering a shopping mall, I’ll betcha they would still allow the vehicle to enter the shopping mall, because those bags were not explosives, but fertilizers. What we need is for a real heightened security alert where security is tight so we can walk freely inside a shopping mall with the knowledge that we are safe and sound.

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 Everyone’s talking about that strong rain last Tuesday, which PAGASA officials say was a microburst, but it caused flooding in the low areas of Metro Cebu simply because that excessive amount of rain could not drain right away. Our esteros and creeks are already clogged, not just by debris that our people throw into our rivers, but also because illegally constructed homes or shanties have in effect clogged our rivers. It’s just like someone suffering from a heart attack dies because of a clogged artery. A simple look at our esteros and rivers clogged with houses or shanties will immediately tell you that we shall have more floods in the future.

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