Alex the Jackal - Sketches

Alexander Hernandez, the creature who would assassinate the President, has the first name of the national security adviser and the last name of the adviser's deputy.

When that bit of intelligence information from not-so-intelligent sources was leaked to the media on a slow Sunday, journalists got in touch with National Security Adviser Alexander Aguirre, who was in Mindanao, and asked him about the report from the office directly under him, the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency. Aguirre's reaction: What report? I think it would be safe to surmise that Aguirre's deputy, Romeo Hernandez, asked the same question.

It was obvious that NICA chief Cesar Fortuno had bypassed his boss and sent an intelligence report to someone else at Malacañang. No, not to the commander-in-chief, whose life was supposedly under threat. Not to the Presidential Security Group, which is tasked to protect the President and his families (plural, according to the PSG's former commander). Not even to Executive Secretary Ronaldo Zamora, the Little President.

Fortuno, who only a few months back had linked top cop Panfilo Lacson to drug trafficking, sent the report to Press Undersecretary Ike Gutierrez. Apparently, Fortuno wanted to alert Ike about this would-be assassin who is supposedly passing himself off as a journalist. We see a lot of these types (one elderly woman who flaunts her tortured Spanish used to display a big STAR ID card) so it may be hard to find Hernandez. Maybe he has joined the Abu Sayyaf. Maybe he's joining the movies.

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That's what members of the intelligence community (who refuse to be identified) think of this silly story. It's no assassination plot but a plot for a movie. And don't expect it to be a blockbuster like the movies about Carlos the Jackal. Alex the Jackal will bomb at the box office.

But as you know by now, President Erap is taking this plot seriously. So poor Alex Aguirre can't say this has to be the most preposterous piece of intelligence information he has ever encountered. Everyone is taking this seriously, from the PSG down to the lowliest clerk at the National Security Council, which is trying to determine who conjured up this hokey plot - not the plot to kill the President, but the plot to distract the nation from its many genuine problems by concocting a plot to kill the President.

Did we get distracted? Probably for a day or two. Then it was back to more exciting news, such as the naughty effort of some communists and burgis (according to Erap) groups to oust the President - not through an assassination plot, but through disinformation, disaffection, destabilization, etc. There's a burgeoning market in exclamation point stickers (orange and blue for Erap, black and white for the anti) and Eraption t-shirts. For the shirts to sell, the President should not find the joke amusing.

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To be sure, there are people who would want to take out the President. It's a hazard of the trade. It's the reason taxpayers are paying for the upkeep of thousands of soldiers tasked to protect the Chief Executive and his loved ones 24 hours a day.

But Alex the Jackal? Tell us this is an Eraption, General Fortuno.

Also, wanting is different from doing. As critics have pointed out, there's no need to take out this President. He's self-destructing. His abysmal rating of negative 32 percent this month, if the figure is accurate, can still go lower. Who needs an "Ides of March" destabilization plot? Disaster is upon this presidency.

His defenders point out that his slide isn't irreversible. This President is no dictator, he won by a landslide in free elections, and economic fundamentals are still sound despite the stock market scandal. Erap sympathizers aren't sleeping on the job either -- they've put out those pro-Erap stickers. (Let's hope taxpayers' money isn't being used.)

The government has ways of fighting back. It can play naughty. It can bug your phone and play dirty. What it should stop playing is the Alex the Jackal card.

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BUZZ: Some real estate assets now being questioned are in the names of the people who financed them. The financiers, with single-syllable surnames, may eventually get back their properties. See who gets evicted come 2004.