Blood in the streets

I was having lunch at the Shangri-la mall with colleague Rosan Cruz and my journalist-astrologer friend (she insists on being nameless but everyone seems to know who she is) when Rosan got a text message about the Glorietta blast. It momentarily raised the eyebrows of my astrologer friend as she exclaimed, “ kita mo na… kaya ayaw kong pumunta dyan.”

My astrologer friend refuses to step into any of the Ayala Makati Malls for some time now, claiming she has bad vibes… something about seeing images of piled bodies… explosion. She has consistently refused the invitation of Chitang Guerrero Nakpil to join our twice monthly Wednesday lunches at a Greenbelt restaurant of Larry Cruz even if Chitang is a very close friend of hers. I had taken her fears with some skepticism and she must have felt it too. This was her big chance to tell me, I told you so.

I nodded to acknowledge how wrong I was to have doubted her. But my mind was quickly transported to the stock exchange… I instinctively looked at my watch and confirmed it was after trading hours… no knee jerk reactions to sell. But I was certain that if a lot of people got hurt or died, the next bloodbath would be at the stock market when trading starts on Monday.

Blood in the streets…This was precisely what I was afraid of. Who are the unpatriotic idiots who can’t seem to stand seeing the country’s economy move up in spite of all the political silliness taking place? Then I got a text message that asked the question: “hus 2gain from d diversion of Ayala bombing?” Talk of total loss of credibility! People were ready to blame them for that.

Not me. Given their daily fumbles, the folks by the Pasig are too distracted to pull off something like this. They couldn’t even stick to the same story line to explain the peso-laden gift bags. Discipline, concentration and impeccable planning are need for a caper like this one. We should ask them however, why they had no intelligence report about this despite the large intelligence funds of the President. Is it because they have to stuff gift bags?

It worries me that some group with military training and precision may have done it for her, without her knowledge. They may have felt her regime is in danger and acted to refocus national attention to security because it is in their interest that she stays in power. Politics, corruption, and all those are less important when personal security is at risk. Whoever did it probably just wants to send a message that “hey guys, it is us. And enough is enough.”

News accounts of the National Security Council briefing confirmed my feeling that Ate Glue’s being genuinely clueless and concerned. PNP Chief Insp. Grace Eustaquio told her in that briefing that traces of RDX—a main ingredient of the C4 explosive used by the military—had been found at the site. RDX is a main component of C-4, a highly explosive substance when an electrical charge is applied to detonate it.

When the President further pressed for additional information on the source of the explosives, one newspaper account reported, Senior Supt. Albert Ferro of the PNP Bomb Data Center said it could only come from the military. Ferro also said that from 2005 and 2006 information, “we can presume those are of military ordnance components. We presume that those explosives could be of that origin.”

See what I mean! Whoever did that left those chemical traces because they wanted us to know who they are or who they are connected with.

Of course it got AFP Chief of Staff Gen. Hermogenes Esperon agitated enough to seek a meeting on the sidelines with the police officers, one account reported. He later on acknowledged that C4 was a “controlled item” but all of the stock of the AFP is accounted for except what was lost during the Oakwood mutiny. It was also suggested that even the Abu Sayyaf had used the material so that terrorists cannot be discounted. (That the Abu Sayyaf could have bought it from the military cannot be discounted either.)

Curiously, the investigators have backtracked and are now saying the explosion could be an ordinary industrial accident. They are now downplaying the bombing possibility after inadvertently painting the military into a corner as principal suspect for the murderous mischief.

If it turns out that the explosion was caused by methane gas from a leaking septic tank mixing with diesel fumes, the focus of attention would shift to Ayala Land for negligence among other things and free government from further uncharitable speculations. An Ayala building engineer reportedly said the sewage system had been defective for some time now. It would be a case of shit literally hitting the ceiling. An accident would be better for the stock market than if it was a conspiracy of rightists or a palace-inspired coup.

If it turned out to be the Abu Sayyaf, it probably wouldn’t be that bad either. After 9/11, the world is getting used to these fringe Muslim extremists striking now and then. Money centers London and of course New York survived such incidents. Hopefully, our positive market fundamentals would be able to survive the ordeal after an initial panic selling.

Serious investors would normally bear in mind the good corporate fundamentals underlining the leading issues in the Philippine Stock Exchange. Some blood in the street should not scare a serious investor to pack up and go. Any market dip should be taken as an opportunity to buy.

Well… the local stock market did drop Monday morning but so did all markets in Asia. While the Friday blast at Glorietta is a concern locally, analysts are saying the bigger reason for the sea of red numbers is a general fear of American recession. The Dow ended lower in Friday trading, oil prices breached the $90 level amidst instability in Iraq’s northern oil producing region and they were really expecting a correction that was described as being overdue.

Local investors are apparently merely taking their cues from the performance of markets abroad and the Glorietta blast was a secondary reason for the drop. The Asian markets tumbled because investors were worried that demand for Asia’s exports would suffer if a slowdown materializes out of the credit crisis that’s gripping America. Given all these, we could have done worse. It seemed like things were cautiously back to normal at the exchanges yesterday.

As always, Pinoys looked for ways to smile in the face of tragedy. I got this text message over the weekend … “Dats wat the Ayalas get for naming their mall after you know who.” But they have been calling that mall Glorietta even before you know who got to live by the Pasig River. Maybe, the name has since been jinxed and the Ayalas should consider a name change… specially in a country as superstitious as ours. If you count Oakwood, strike three na ang Glorietta with the two incidents last weekend.

My rational side may not allow me to take the fears of my astrologer friend seriously. But in the light of all the kamalasan happening there, I know I will get the unexplainable urge to think twice before going there now. I don’t relish the thought of my astrologer friend telling me “I told you so” a second time in less auspicious circumstances, like a hospital emergency room, compared to our comfortable perch at Sumo Sam last Friday when she exclaimed, “kita mo na!”

My most heartfelt sympathies go the families of the victims, specially of the young OFWs or about to be OFWs whose dreams were ended by this tragedy. Dreams shouldn’t end as “collateral damage” in what probably was a naked power play or corporate negligence. Reading about the broken stories of these victims make one so angry that life is what it is today in our otherwise beautiful country.

A nation of PhDs

This one’s from an old friend, Ruth Marbibi.

Job interviewer: What is your qualification.

Applicant: Sir, I am a PhD.

Job interviewer: What do you mean by PhD?

Applicant: Passed High school, with Difficulty!

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]