You'd think that when a bank collapses there would be loud outcries of anger from its major depositors -- but the eerie silence from some of those badly "burned" by the meltdown and closure of Urban Bank can only remind us of the Mafia code of omerta.
However, that's probably owing to human nature. If you'll recall, many of the biggest names in business and finance lost fortunes when a prominent lady investment broker based in New York and New Jersey took them for a ride, by taking their money in a series of glib get-richer-quickly schemes -- then flushing those funds, thanks to her unwise or lavish ways, down the toilet. Even though millions of dollars were "lost" by these prominent individuals (they had trusted the woman since she was well-born, de buena familia, in short, "one of them"), nobody aired a public complaint. They got a US court to "try" her later, but she got away with little more than a slap on the wrist.
This caper in which so many big names were gypped came to be known as "The Forbes Park Massacre," circa 1993.
What happened when Urban Bank -- with its facade of a soaring skyscraper headquarters (one of the tallest in Metro Manila) -- went belly up, constitutes another "massacre."
What exactly went wrong is still to be announced, but it's clear that, as in the Forbes Park disaster, many top honchos and ritzy organizations followed the Pied Piper of Urban into the hole. Yet, none of them are speaking up loudly: As in the previous case, they're mightily ashamed. Even former President Fidel V. Ramos, who lent his name and prestige to the bank by letting it give him the title of Chairman emeritus plus an office in the Penthouse, has gone silent. Why the self-imposition of omerta? It's the same story -- acute embarrassment.
For instance, is it true that an important Rotary Club had deposited and invested P40 million in Urban -- which it now can't recover? Or a yacht club P11.9 million? Or a polo club P19 million? Or a golf club P3 million? That's the problem in our chummy-chummy society. Otherwise hardnosed businessmen, executives, managers and CEOs -- instead of conducting "due diligence" -- have the propensity to entrust their own cash or their club's funds in the hands of someone they know as a "friend" or somebody "prestigious."
Clearly, the insurance won't cover most of those sums -- so they're out of pocket. What they don't want to lose further is "face." Fortunately, only Urban Bank crashed. A run on a couple of other banks was stemmed, thanks to returning client and investor confidence in their viability and the vigorous intervention of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.
The moral of this tale, though, is: Never trust. And never, as the Americans used to crack during our student days, "never put your money on a fast woman or a slow horse."
Perhaps Russia's Vladimir Putin -- who's just been formally sworn in as elected President -- is right, despite the beastly crackdown on the rebellious Chechens by his armed forces. When Russia got drummed out of the Council of Europe because of the alleged atrocities in Chechnya, when the United Nations complained through Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and our friend Mary Robinson,UN Human Rights Commissioner and a former President of Ireland, raised bloody hell about "violations" in Chechnya, Putin merely shrugged.
Since Russia borrows a great deal of money from the West and needs goodwill from that direction, Mr. Putin didn't tell his critics and the complainants to go jump in the lake. He simply smiled and ignored them. His priorities apparently were clear in his mind: Rally the Russian nation, assure Russians of their safety (he'll now have to curb the Mafiya and the Oligarchs, an improbable dream), and mend fences with America and Europe, without bowing and scraping.
Much as they apparently don't "like" Putin, the Europeans and Americans simply have to grin and bear it -- namely, his lack of reaction.
In the face of all that bluster from his detractors and creditors, Putin, of course, holds strong cards, among them a still-potent nuclear arsenal of 10,000 warheads. The arms reduction treaty ratified by the Russian Duma (lower house of Parliament) last month seeks to eliminate approximately 3,000 of these warheads. On the other hand, the Russian missiles still in their silos each carries between six and 10 nuke warheads, all of them individually more powerful than the atom bombs that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So, Putin can thumb his nose at the Europeans and the Yanks, and even get them to chorus that "He's a jolly good fellow."
In our case, the uninvited arrival of European Union security adviser (and former Secretary-General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) Javier Solana is a brazen attempt to bully our Chief Executive and our military into not "attacking" the Islamic rebels of the Abu Sayyaf, because the Muslim kidnappers are holding ten foreign hostages, seven of them Europeans.
Solana claims he's not here to "negotiate", yet we all suspect they're ready to pay "ransom." Already, the intervention of Solana and the European Union (as represented by the Western envoys here) has deterred our Armed Forces, whose troops had virtually surrounded the murderous Abu Sayyaf, as well as blunted a parallel offensive being undertaken against the larger Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). The message Solana delivered was quite obviously: Stop shooting -- lest "our" hostages be killed -- and start talking. This is the worst form of contemptuous "undiplomatic" meddling by any foreigner or outsider I've encountered in my long journalistic career, and I've covered the Vietnam War, the Second Indian-Pakistani War, the "Black September" War in Jordan and the Irbid Peninsula, the GESTAPU coup and massacres in Indonesia, and the riots in Mexico. Solana's butting in has so tied our hands so disastrously that a major segment of the Abu Sayyaf managed to get away (to reemerge someday soon and kill more Filipinos). The awful part is that they slipped through the cordon along with their foreign hostages.
Another meddler in the form of our old acquaintance, former Libyan Ambassador Abdul Rajab Azzarouq, has just arrived, trumpeting that he represents 52 Muslim countries, on the excuse that he intends to "help" us negotiate for the release of the hostages. That's the curse the late President Ferdinand E. Marcos and his First Lady, Imeldific, inflicted on this country, when the Marcos administration signed the demented Tripoli Agreement permitting the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) to stick their noses into what happens in Mindanao. Why on earth do we continue to "honor" an agreement made by a Dictator, many years after our People Power "revolution" overthrew that despot? This has always puzzled me. No wonder we're being regarded as a Nation of Wimps.
Let me put it as plainly as I can: The "internationalization" of the situation is a direct attack on the sovereignty of this country. By allowing foreigners to blatantly intrude into our domestic affairs, we're once again kowtowing abjectly to outsiders. Solana's and the European Union's "satisfaction" should never be our goal: Our aim must be to safeguard everyone, citizen or alien, in our free Republic, but not at the expense of our security and stability.
As for Azzarouq's "help," it would be a joke were it not worse, a piece of horse manure. Historically, Libya has always been a staunch supporter of terrorist activities (a Lockerbie "trial" is now ongoing, involving two Lib-yans). Tripoli has been backing the various Muslim rebellions here, from the MNLF to the MILF, and the Abu Sayyaf. Libyan Leader Colonel Moammar Ghadaffi's son has been a frequent "visitor" to Mindanao, and he didn't come here merely to pray at the local Mosque. The Libyans, for years, hosted the ruthless Abu Nidal of the Fatah Revolutionary Council. Why should their envoy, Abdul Rajab Azzarouq, be on "our side"? He's on his way to Mindanao, we can only conclude, to give comfort to the Abu Sayyaf. In this light, we're not only acting like wimps -- but suckers.
Many people, since my return, have been heckling the fact that President Estrada went to Mindanao in battle-dress, his chest emblazoned with the identifying label, "Commander in Chief." While I believe the President should have gone in civilian garb (instead of appearing like he was back in the flickers in an "action role" or on his way to a Costume Ball), I can appreciate that he might have been motivated by a sincere, if awkward, desire to symbolize his unflinching support of our embattled Armed Forces.
This year alone, the AFP has suffered 600 casualties in the fight to put down Moro rebellion in Mindanao. Our soldiers (as a former NATO official like Solana should have understood) continually risk their lives -- and often lose them -- to bring Mindanao under the rule of law and subdue the outlaws. But Solana and his ilk have no concern for them, or our Republic. He and his principals appear only to be interested in saving the "white" European men and women in the grasp of the Abu Sayyaf. His presence may even prove counter-productive: Why should the bandits release them now? Those hostages have become much more valuable, in the aftermath of Solana's arrival and worldwide publicity, than the "ransom" or "good will" the insurgents could garner from freeing their Caucasian captives.
The President and his men must not allow themselves to be browbeaten by Solana and his European group. What if they cut us off without trade, investment, or "aid" (the latter the weapon of the chronic international blackmailer)? We went through war, enemy occupation, and hell -- and we'll find the fortitude to do so again.
The Muslim rebels and bandits are too few to wrest Mindanao from our sovereign Republic, and I'm confident that many Muslims who're too scared to speak out are themselves leery of their fundamentalist and kleptocratic ways. That's why they cleverly enlist the assistance of foreigners, from their funders and trainors in the Islamic world to the meddlers of Western Europe (who may someday find themselves, equally, under siege -- perhaps that's what they deserve).
The EU, further, may be demonstrating its contempt of Mr. Estrada, who has become, sadly, a figure of caricature in their circles and their press. Instead of buckling under to these busybodies and their interfering arrogance, we'll have to stand firm -- and stand together. It's not just "ten" or 21 hostages who are at stake -- but the lives and welfare of 75 million Filipinos.