Indecisiveness and lack of guts are the fatal foe, not the Abu Sayyaf

Those murderous rascals, the Abu Sayyaf, have grabbed world headlines anew by returning to Lamitan town in Basilan and sticking a dirty finger up the armed forces’ nose by seizing 21 Christian captives and beheading four.

Naturally, the news was all over the planet within minutes, with the alert Cable News Network (CNN), British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) and other cable and wire agencies trumpeting the news about this latest outrage to the four winds. Yesterday, the atrocity probably made frontpages worldwide. For example, as its third lead story, the International Herald Tribune, published out of Paris and in ten capitals around the globe (including here in Manila), ran a lurid headline: "Hostages Beheaded in Filipino Raid." The subhead declared: "Islamic Separatists Kill at Least 4 in a Strike on Island Villagers."

Goodbye, once more, tourism! Farewell, foreign investment! Screw, for that matter, the absurd idea of implementing (to attract more foreign airline traffic allegedly) an "open skies" policy! Who’ll fly the Unfriendly Skies of a war-torn Philippines? What foreign investor or tourist will venture here when there are thousands of places all over the globe where they will be less threatened by scruffy Abu bandits who pop out of the bush, kidnappers, con men, and extorting bureaucrats?

"Bring the peso down to P50" as cheerfully "ordered" by our President? Brace yourselves. Unless there’s resolute action taken now – and I don’t mean for the Bangko Sentral to fritter away our dwindling $14 billion reserve in the currency’s futile defense – the "GMA bill" may turn into Mickey Mouse play money, as during the Japanese imperial occupation.

I wouldn’t say that Senator Blas Ople is right. He was quoted in Geneva as saying that "the Philippine armed forces are the laughing stock of the world!" (Did Ka Blas really put it that bluntly?) We’re not laughing here. We’re hurting. The military, after the latest Abu caper, is hurting most of all – from severely-dented pride. Those who haven’t been over that rugged and treacherous terrain don’t know how difficult it is to fight there and defend Basilan’s communities, particularly when almost every Moro (c’mon, they’ll deny it) is against the Christian government and for the Abu Sayyaf.

I wouldn’t cheer, for that matter, the "unity accord" signed in Malaysia’s Cyberjaya by ranking honchos of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) under the mischievous auspices of no less than the Malaysian Defense Minister Najib Razak. Why the Defense Minister?

A joining of forces between the MNLF and the MILF, two Islamic guerrilla movements which used to detest each other, does not augur well for peace in Mindanao and the southern Philippines. Both are well-armed groups. Nur Misuari’s insurgent MNLF was "incorporated" into our army and police under the auspices of the peace agreement signed by Misuari with former President Fidel V. Ramos – and rearmed by the government, would you believe? Ustadz Hashim Salamat’s larger and more aggressive MILF, who created all that havoc and mayhem in Lanao del Norte, Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, Cotabato, and the two Zamboangas, etc., may have lost Camp Abubakar, their "sacred" headquarters, but they haven’t surrendered their weapons, which are well-oiled and still dangerous. Perhaps, with two groups "unified" and reconciled with each other, the Second Round is coming. Notice how Misuari and Salamat have cannily kept themselves out of sight, giving them leeway to later "denounce" any deal made by their subordinates.

If President Arroyo thinks she’s going to Kuala Lumpur on August 7 (Tuesday) to triumphantly sign a "peace" agreement with the Muslim insurgents generously sponsored by the Malaysians, she had better beware. There are booby traps littered all over the pathway from Manila to K.L. For starters, why should the Malaysians want "peace" in Mindanao? Keeping that huge island group in ferment suits their purposes better – such as keeping our minds off the "long lost" claim of the Sulu Sultanate to Malaysian-held Sabah (North Borneo), a teeming, oil-rich island bigger than Mindanao.

But we’ve always been the neighborhood idiots, easily beguiled and disarmed by a smile and a handshake.

* * *

The Abu Sayyaf, on the other hand, are not the worst enemies of the Arroyo administration. The President has turned out to be, lamentably, her own worst enemy. How can she claim she won’t be pressured to do the same thing and "I will not bend to mob rule" when she already did exactly that? When she gave in to the protesting employees/executives and other malcontents of the Social Security System (SSS) and booted out their hate-object, the now-departed SSS President Vitaliano Nañagas, she set for herself a pattern of surrender and retreat potentially more disastrous than Napoleon’s terrible retreat from Moscow.

When you cave in to "people power", so-called, in the SSS, every other government agency gets the message that you may talk tough but you lack intestinal fortitude.

We may soon see protests, strikes, and "people power" demonstrations all over the map. Those who are discontented and resentful of their bosses have tasted blood, and are getting the notion that the President can be bullied or stampeded into yielding to their demands.

Of course, Cora de la Paz is an excellent choice to now head the SSS. She’s not only the just-retired president of Cunanan-Price Waterhouse, the renowned and influential accounting multinational, but she’s brilliant and a good administrator. She’s got moxie, as well. But that’s completely beside the point.

* * *

This writer holds no brief for Mr. Nañagas. I’m told the guy was disliked by subordinates and employees in the previous offices he headed, such as the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. (PDIC). When he was in the Philippine Stock Exchange, many PSE employees went on "strike" during their lunch hour, wearing black armbands to signify how much they hated Nañagas. People who’ve sat with him in bank board rooms and other corporate boards tell me that he’s industrious and competent, but he’s abrasive and hurtful in the use of language. Nonetheless, by decapitating Nañagas so hastily (Abu Sayyaf-style), just to please the SSS "strikers" and their radical labor supporters, La Gloria has let the genie out of the bottle.

It’s ridiculous for her to now intone that the heave-ho given Nañagas "should not in any way be viewed as precedent-setting," coupled with a warning that she will not bend to mob rule. How can the irresponsible genie or djinn of "people power", exercised in the most abusive ways, be forced back into the bottle now? GMA has immersed herself in a Sea of Troubles to Come.

Even the manner in which Nañagas was "promoted" to the chairmanship of the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) may pose another self-provoked headache for the President. Some DBP personnel, through their unions, have already sent an appeal to Malacañang that they don’t want Nañagas but would prefer Ernest Leung to stay. Will the protest worsen in the coming week – or peter out? Abangan. There’s grumbling in the NAPOCOR, too. Where else?

When I asked our capable Finance Secretary Lito Camacho at a dinner in the Tower Club the other night why Nañagas was kicked out so precipitately then imposed on the DBP, Camacho groaned: "It was a difficult judgment call. But something had to be done . . . fast." When I pressed him further on why, if Nañagas was so antipatico, he was gifted with the consolation prize of the DBP chairmanship, and wouldn’t he create "trouble" there, too? Lito replied that Nañagas would be going to the DBP for meetings "only twice a month."

The logic perhaps is that if he doesn’t have to deal with people more than two times monthly, Nañagas will be okay? Susmariosep! What a way to run a ship, granted that our leaky tub is certainly no cruise liner!

GMA, Camacho and her crew may have all the doctorates in economics and, in Lito’s case, all the banking experience and savvy in the world, but when you’re on the battle line, you’ve got to have the blood and guts of a General George Patton. The Presidency is all about making very rough, uncompromising and very often "misunderstood" decisions.

* * *

The argument will be made, of course, that a protracted struggle in the SSS would exasperate and inconvenience 23 million pensioners who depend on their SSS pension checks for their livelihood.

"In fact, Secretary Camacho pointed out, "the SSS ‘strikers’ promised they would work Saturdays and Sundays to catch up with the backlog of payments and unissued checks created by their walk-out." How heroic. After they damaged the system, they’re now pledging to repair it. But no medals, I’m sorry, for them.

When America’s Ronald Reagan, who was derided by his detractors as being just a Grade B movie actor, was faced with an even worse crisis, he didn’t blink. In 1981, when the powerful Professional Air Traffic Controllers’ Organization threatened to strike the following day if the government didn’t agree to give them a huge salary increase, Reagan asserted such a move would cost taxpayers almost $700 million a year and firmly said, "No." (This, although the PATCO, among other unions, had supported Reagan, a former union leader himself, when he ran for the Presidency.)

On August 3, more than 70 percent of the Federal Aviation Authority’s force of about 17,000 controllers went on strike.

Reagan warned the strikers that if they didn’t end their "illegal strike" and return to work within forty-eight hours, they would all be terminated. The PATCO controllers must have thought he was bluffing because they ignored the President’s warning that they would be fired and never rehired. Hundreds of flights daily all over the USA were disrupted, the safety of thousands of passengers on airline flights was endangered, and the already troubled US economy suffered great harm.

Reagan, however, stuck to his guns. The remaining few at the control towers worked overtime, the US Air Force was recruited to help, and, eventually, some of the strikers, finally realizing their mistake, begged to be allowed to return to work. The important thing in that daily more flights took to the air, and, with thousands of new air controllers, freshly trained, thrown into the gap, everything returned to normal. There were no accidents or mishaps. The unrepentant strikers, of course, never got their jobs back.

Reagan admits this is one of the worst crises in his life. But it set his Presidency on the road to success. Please don’t bridle at this anecdote, Madam President. But learn from it instead.

You said that, as one of your role models, you wanted to be like Britain’s Maggie Thatcher, or Israel’s late Golda Meir. (Also, like Cory Aquino.)

Well, Maggie was known as the "Iron Lady", and wasn’t much loved. She was, on the other hand, both feared and respected. Golda Meir, for her part, used to be called: "The only man in the Cabinet." The feminists may resent that, but that’s what the Israelis admiringly called their lady prime minister. Golda, whom this writer knew, really had "balls." She could also cook great gefilte fish.