GMA unfazed by death threats

Death threats are not about to keep her cooped up at Malacañang.

President Arroyo resumes her provincial sorties today with flights to Albay and Batangas amid an alleged assassination plot to be carried out by Abu Sayyaf bandits on orders of Saudi billionaire and suspected international terrorist Osama bin Laden.

The President assured the public, however, that extra measures are being taken in her scheduled provincial travels as well as her "lightning visits" to urban poor areas in Metro Manila.

"I give a few hours lead time to my Presidential Security Group (PSG) to prepare these visits. They can deploy advance parties to check the area first," she said.

PSG agents actually had a bit of a scare yesterday just as the President was about to make a "lightning visit" to Isla Puting Bato in Tondo.

The bomb-proof presidential vehicle got stuck in the mud in Project 7, Quezon City after Mrs. Arroyo’s visit to the Esteban Abada Elementary School. Six heavily built PSG agents, wary of potential attacks from assassins, had extreme difficulty in disengaging the vehicle from the sticky predicament.

Last Tuesday, the President also made a lightning visit to the BASECO compound in Tondo following a speaking engagement at the Manila Hotel.

Presidential Spokesman Rigoberto Tiglao said yesterday Mrs. Arroyo’s busy schedule was not an indication the threats were being downplayed.

"We take them seriously, but the President feels that being confined to Malacañang would not be good in running the government," Tiglao said. "She is resigned to the fact that the presidency has its risks. We can’t be paralyzed by reports of terrorist threats."

He pointed out that new security measures were being implemented to protect the President and members of her family.

Tiglao said the intelligence reports on the Abu Sayyaf slay plot have prompted the PSG to institute vehicle checks at the Palace gates and the deployment of bomb-sniffing dogs at the compound last weekend.

"We received intelligence reports and are dealing with them appropriately," he said.

In a related development, Senate President Aquilino Pimentel Jr. expressed doubts over reports some 50 members of the Abu Sayyaf are currently training in Afghanistan.

"We still have to find out the basis of Arcilla’s report," Pimentel said, referring to Ambassador to Pakistan Romeo Arcilla, who had earlier confirmed claims by Sen. Rodolfo Biazon on the presence of Abu Sayyaf fighters in Afghanistan. – With Efren Danao