Raising the terror alert level in Cebu!

Two weekends ago, on May 6, a rather small incident could have gone unnoticed were it not for an alert hotel roomboy who questioned a group of guests as to why they were bringing out their friend wrapped in a blanket to a waiting van. Their friend turned out to be very dead and they were obviously trying to dispose of the body somewhere. Normally people would first alert the hotel that something bad had happened to their friend or even call for an ambulance. But not these people.

Well, the police came and arrested the men who were identified as Oscar Dalegi, 42, of Teling Atas Manado Sulut, and Bernard Lebene, 49, of JI Ankasa, both Indonesians. The dead man was identified as Johannes Taruk. It turned out that they had eight other companions in that hotel in Barangay Guadalupe who eventually fled when the police came calling.

What heightened our alert was that these people who were arrested last Saturday carried no identification. They even tried to mislead the police, claiming that the dead man was one Francisco Vidal of Tagum, Davao del Norte. It was only last Wednesday when the Indonesians were identified when Senior Superintendent Bambang Usadi of the Indonesian National Police was sent to Cebu by the Indonesian Embassy to meet Cebu City Police Chief Superintendent Melvin Gayotin.

The Indonesian police identified the 10 men not as terrorists, but seajackers… suspected of seajacking the TB Martha Dini and its tugboat, IK Santana. These Indons didn’t take the boat by force, but rather brought it from Sumatra to the Philippines and sold it to someone in Negros Oriental. So there you are, while they were not terrorists, they were still criminals! But because it took some time to find out the identities of the Indon men (who knows, they could very well be members of Jemaah Islamiyah who seajacked a vessel to come to Cebu without documents), the alert for possible terrorists was raised by the Cebu City police.

Meanwhile, last Thursday evening, I attended the fourth anniversary of the Carbon Market Vendors’ Cooperative (Cemvedco) at the Grand Convention Center in Cebu City and their guest of honor was Mayor Tomas Osmeña who spoke to this huge organization of market vendors about the potential terror threat that was dawning in Cebu and the ways by which they could help thwart this threat. Mayor Tom gave them tips, like the suspects wouldn’t want to speak to you because they don’t know the language or they do not want to socialize.

Call it timely that the Cebu City mayor made that speech because just an hour later, a commotion ensued at SM when two suspects later identified as Ali Usop and Datu Niel Ulama left a box containing two rifle grenades with a timing device at the parking lot. Thanks to the heightened alert status of the Cebu City police, a SWAT team was dispatched and a few minutes later, the two suspects were seen running in the rain near the Queen City Gardens and before the police could stop to question them, they fired at the police and after the smoke cleared, they lay dead.

This incident is proof that terror groups are now targeting Cebu and call it good timing that these two incidents happened so close apart. That’s quite a lot for us Cebuanos who are not used to these types of criminality. No doubt, Mayor Tomas Osmeña was right to raise the alert for terrorists because of the ASEAN Summit slated in December this year. While December is still months away, Mayor Osmeña believes that the terror groups would try to sow terror and force the cancellation of the summit.

There is no question that the security at SM is at best inadequate. While we do get inspected as we enter the shopping mall, the two slain suspects apparently were going to bring in their explosives via another entrance for service employees. Ali Usof was later identified as a baker in one of the establishments at SM. That means busboys, waiters, salesgirls and other workers should also be given special inspection. Who knows, one could easily hide an explosive inside a piece of bread or pizza?

Call it luck if you will that these two incidents ended with the arrests or the deaths of the persons involved without doing any harm to civilians. To us Cebuanos, we attribute this to the mantle of protection of our patroness, Our Lady of Guadalupe, and Señor Sto. Niño de Cebu. Let us keep up this alert status until after December because for sure there will be other attempts to sow terror in Cebu so as to disrupt the ASEAN Summit.

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I was aghast to read a story written by Mike Frialde on page 13 of The Philippine STAR last Friday, which read, "La Salle-Ateneo surveys prefers Erap over GMA." Though this may have been just an informal survey, I’m dismayed that the alumni of these two leading universities of this country would prefer a discredited action star who contributed nothing in his short stint as President and virtually ended up shooting down his own presidency because of corruption in office.

To add more stupidity to this silly survey, these Ateneans and La Sallites chose Sen. Panfilo Lacson, Sen. Jun Magsaysay, Prof. Randy David and Vice President Noli de Castro as their choice as President if in case GMA steps down. No wonder, this nation has gone to the dogs! The supposed brilliant graduates that these two schools have produced through the years could not come up with better choices than what the masa would have chosen.

Truth to tell, my late father, Atty. Jesus S. Avila, studied in both La Salle and Ateneo (but he graduated at the University of Southern Philippines) because prior to World War II, the Avilas had a house along Morato Avenue, that was why I asked my Dad if I could study in Manila but he refused. Now in hindsight, I understand the wisdom of my father. I’m certainly glad that I graduated at the Colegio de San Jose-Recoletos (CSJR)!

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Talking about the Recoletos, last Friday, we witnessed history as it was the 400th anniversary of the presence of the Augustinian Recollects in the country. This celebration began with the unveiling of a beautiful monument at a corner in the grounds of Fort San Pedro depicting the event 400 years ago and a concelebrated Mass inside the University Church of my alma mater.

Four hundred years ago, 13 Augustinian Recollects left Sanlucar de Barrameda in Spain and boarded the vessel Espiritu Santo in February 1606 and crossed to Mexico and left via Acapulco. On May 12, 1606, they landed in the shores of Cebu and since then, have never left. In fact, 2,000 more priests came to Cebu to bring the Good News of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ to the people of this archipelago.

If we are Catholics today, it is due to the sacrifice (yes, why don’t you try crossing the Pacific Ocean on a sailboat so you’ll know how hard it is?) of the Augustinian Recollects, who served God so far and away from their home country. A great number of these priests have adopted Cebu as their home and have fought their battles to keep Christianity alive in this part of the world. Almost all of them are buried on Cebu soil.

Today, the Augustinian Recollects are still with us fighting a different battle… one against creeping relativism that seeks to marginalize the Catholic Church, and the other, our constant battle against poverty which we firmly believe can be won by better education… that’s why they still run schools in this country. We used to joke that USJR is the largest university outside of Carbon… market, that is. But I was pleasantly surprise that after the Mass, we had dinner in their well-stocked library complete with 120,000 books, including computers with Internet access! Thanks to the Augustinian Recollect community for all those centuries of service to the Lord.

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For e-mail responses to this article, write to [email protected]. Bobit Avila’s columns in The Freeman can also be accessed through The Philippine STAR website (www.philstar.com). He also hosts a weekly talkshow, "Straight from the Sky," shown every Monday, at 8 p.m., only in Metro Cebu on Channel 15 of SkyCable.