When a ‘wartime’ leader faints – that’s cause for worldwide concern

The way in which the American military spokesmen and the international media have been depicting the arrival of US Special Forces "advisers" in the Philippines is doing our country a disservice. The pity of it is that the Americans don’t – as usual – realize the damage their bragging inflicts on our image as a stable nation, politically and economically reliable, and a welcoming site for investment.

When US military officials announce, as they did to Associated Press correspondent Pauline Jelinek, "that Afghanistan isn’t the only country where Americans are fighting or plan to fight terrorists," then, in the same breath, assert that "Special Operations troops are in the Philippines and at least 100 more will follow", this raises the spectre abroad that we’re on the way to becoming another Vietnam.

By exaggerating the importance of their coming here with military "training" units, in short, the impression is being given to any prospective investors that the "advisors" will soon expand their role to actual combatants – which is exactly what happened in South Vietnam between 1961 and 1971.

Even the Jan. 11 issue of the US Navy Times carried the scarey headline: Military Advisers Enter Philippines.

The subhead of the article was even more disquieting: US Military Advisers Will Be Allowed to Join Front-line Filipino Troops According to a Senior Philippine Military Official. The Navy Times was quoting our Armed Forces Chief of Staff Gen. Diomedio Villanueva.

Sus: don’t talk about it. If you’ve got to do it, just do it!

During World War II, there used to be posters all over the US warning servicemen and the public: Loose lips sink ships.

That’s what should apply here: "Wartime" rules. The trouble with America, and it troubles her Allies no end, is that Americans, badgered by a free and unfettered media, always telegraph their punches.

In the AP wire service story, journalist Jelinek wrote that the US Special Forces already in the Philippines "will spearhead the US effort to bolster the Asian nation’s defenses against radical Muslims linked to the al-Qaeda network. With the war in Afghanistan in its third month, the dispatch of forces to the Philippines is an example of US efforts to take the fight against terror elsewhere around the globe."

A few days ago, the same thing was aired all over the influential Cable News Network (CNN).

Of course we welcome American help. But they talk too much. Superpowers usually tend to be super-talkers.

* * *

When US President George W. Bush, who’s leading America’s fight against global terrorism, chokes on a pretzel and falls in a faint on the floor – that’s cause for grave concern. If he had choked to death, the headlines would have blared: "Pretzel downs Bush."

Osama bin Laden would probably have died, too – of envy of the lethal pretzel baker. The all-baker network would have proven more potent than al-Qaeda.

Mr. Bush was reportedly watching a football match on his White House TV set while munching on a pretzel when he choked on it and fell from his couch in a dead faint on the floor. But, a spokesman said later, "he was unconscious just for a few seconds, after which he got up and called his wife and the White House nurse."

Nobody is unconscious just a few seconds, excuse me. I may not be a doctor, and definitely not a neurologist, but when a guy blacks out, he blacks out for at least a few minutes – and is unlikely to get up and call for help under his own steam.

And what happened to the White House security men? Don’t tell me the President of the United States was left all by himself, alone with those deadly pretzels? What about the fellow with the black box, or black football-type case, with all those nuclear and fail-safe codes and buttons? Wasn’t he standing by in case of an emergency, or if George wanted to nuke somebody? The story doesn’t jell.

The dispatch from Washington, DC went on to claim that "the 55-year old President was able to walk himself to the elevator and take a ride from the second floor to the first floor where the physician’s office is located." Sanamagan. Wasn’t the doctor supposed to rush to the President, rather than have the President wobbling to his office door, knocking on it, and differently saying: "Excuse me, but I just had this thing with a pretzel – and all I can remember is that the Miami Dolphins were on the 20-yard line…" (Or isn’t there a stretcher in the White House?)

Is this the resolute leader who bombed the Taliban out of power, sent bin Laden and his terrorists scrambling in terror for their very lives, ordered air and naval armadas halfway around the globe – 7,000 miles – to demolish those villains? Where were his legions when, unguarded, he almost was done to death by a pretzel?

I hope nobody ever sends Mr. Bush a gift of home-cooked bangus, and I don’t mean "boneless bangus." I’m afraid that poor Mr. Bush won’t ever hear the end of it.

* * *

Once again, one of those badly-designed trainer jets acquired some years ago by the Philippine Air Force from the Italian Agusta Corporation, an S-211, crashed with fatal results. This time the plane plummeted into a residential compound of the National Food Authority (NFA) in Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija, killing its two pilots, and three civilians on the ground, injuring several residents, and demolishing 20 homes.

Of the 18 S-211s procured by the PAF during the administration of former President Cory Aquino, so many have already crashed (killing some of our best pilots and aviation cadets), only five remain serviceable. Let me repeat what I wrote in this corner four years ago: All those dangerous S-211s, purchased at great cost (who made those deals?), should be scrapped. Better to lose money, I asserted at the time, than lose pilots – not to mention hapless civilians in the path of falling airplanes.

This didn’t happen – and now, sad to say, we have this tragedy. Incidentally, the same Italian firm, Agusta, was involved some years ago in a major scandal concerning billions of dollars worth of helicopters and other aircraft procured by ranking officials of the Belgian government as well as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) whose headquarters are just outside Brussels. What about the Department of National Defense and PAF bidding and procurement officers who selected those already controversial S-211s? There was an "investigation", I recall, but nothing happened to anybody. The crime continues – without any culprits. The whitewash and the cover-up are, alas, hallowed Philippine institutions.

* * *

Those frenzied and over-publicized preparations by Malacañang and the Philippine National Police (PNP) to cope with any rowdy or aggressive demonstrators and rallyists during the EDSA DOS People Power II "celebrations" have created the impression that the Palace and those in charge of this stupid affair are very insecure. The vibrations the public gets are that Malacañang and the PNP are scared stiff on a repetition of the May 1 "Labor Day" affray when determined mobs of kapus-palad and angry masa stormed their way all the way to the Palace gates.

If President GMA had sensibly declared a month ago that EDSA DAY should be a work-day, and there was no need to interrupt the nation’s endeavors (and the traffic) with another pointless fiesta, her cohorts and policemen wouldn’t have been in such a fix. What was intended to be a glorious celebration of La Gloria’s ascent into excelsis is now becoming more and more a threat to her – and, by all their overblown and over-dramatized announcements, our security agencies and police are worsening the situation.

In addition to barbed wire barricades, reinforced steel gates, it has just been revealed on radio and TV that Malacañang has had the steel gates electrically charged!

I’ve long been an admirer of Police General Egay Aglipay, the head of the PNP Capital Region Command. He’s tough, fair, and honest. But why, oh, why is he overstating the security arrangements? On TV last night, General Aglipay disclosed that a "security check" on PNP personnel in Metro Manila had been undertaken, with the admonition that if any of our cops were to be approached by hostile elements they should report the matter to their superiors in the PNP top command. He further warned that PNP personnel should always observe the chain of command. Sanamagan, Egay: If security checks have to be conducted on some cops because we don’t trust their loyalty, the matter should have been kept secret. To shout that to the four winds would inevitably cause public unease.

Oh, well. The public doesn’t trust policemen anyway, even more so when it’s being announced that they don’t trust each other.

I wish, once more, that it wasn’t too late (or is it?) to call all that EDSA DOS, People Power II nonsense off.

I think, in the end, that Supreme Court Justices Jose G. Vitug, Santiago Kapunan, Consuelo Ynares-Santiago, and Angelina Gutierrez were absolutely right when they bravely expressed their apprehensions over "people power." In her written opinion, Justice Consuelo Ynares-Santiago described it as "an amorphous and indefinable concept." She pointedly asked: "… at what stage do people assembled en masse become a mob? And when do the actions of that mob, albeit unarmed or well-behaved, become people power."

This writer was one of the February 1986 EDSA "people power" barricaders facing those tanks, armored cars, and tear gas in front of Camp Crame. But enough is enough. The first People Power was an explosion of spontaneous defiance, anger, and resentment against 14 years of dictatorship and martial law. It was a stand that toppled a ruthless dictator and his military monolith, and was admired and lauded all over the world.

Now that we’ve made it habitual – the world is laughing at us.