Marcos’s martial law propagandists coined the phrase "voluminous subversive documents" to justify the killing of unarmed activists in house-to-house searches of mimeographing machines for radical manifestos. They were "communist terrorists" or "CTs", and thus had to die.
The long-winded line was used so often that soldiers took to writing "VSDs" when listing down items taken from raids. It even became a grim joke back then that the rebels were always losing in gunbattles because they were lugging not guns but voluminous what-nots.
For Mabanta to keep using the worn-out line shows unfamiliarity with new conditions, and paranoia with once-radical views that have come into vogue or been rendered passe.
If it were a basketball game, it’d be a duty-foul for sectoral Rep. Satur Ocampo of the Left-leaning Bayan Muna to put two and two together as he did, although the FBI has nothing whatsoever to do with US soldiers. But even centrist Rep. Apolinario Lozada, whose US visa was recently revoked by mistake and for which the US embassy apologized, read a sinister plot. Said Lozada, the House committee chairman on foreign relations, the request for 300 more soldiers was giving him the shivers and leading him to suspect that Washington "has long-term plans here" after all. "Why can’t the existing force (660 US troops) undertake the civic action?" he hardened. Defense Sec. Angelo Reyes shrugged that the US side is only worried that it might not finish in six months the roads it started to pave in Basilan and Zamboanga. Owing perhaps to the warm welcome from barrio folk, the US brass realized how crucial its medical missions were in a fight against home-grown terrorists like the Abu Sayyaf. They couldn’t leave half-done the mission of bringing some form of development into poverty-stricken locales that breed religious and other forms of fanaticism. The present US force, whose mission is to train RP troops in modern combat equipment, can’t do the work of road building. They need to bring in the engineering battalion, backed by the AFP’s own engineering units.
Mueller, for his part, spelled out to reporters the purpose of his Asian visit. It’s partly to brief Asian leaders on al-Qaeda plans to build weapons of mass destruction. But in RP, it’s mostly to assure the government that the US is ready to extradite fugitives Atong Ang and Yolanda Ricaforte, both coaccused with Joseph Estrada of plunder. In exchange, of course, the US expects the swift deportation, too, of Manila Rep. Mark Jimenez, who’s accused of illegal campaign expenses and mail fraud in the US. In short, a prisoner swap is what Mueller wants, although only Ang is in jail in Las Vegas. Ricaforte’s whereabouts are unknown; Jimenez enjoys immunity in Congress.
Related events unnerved xenophobes into thinking the worst. They read in George W. Bush’s recent praise for Philippine collaboration in the global war against terrorism a desire to extend the war from Basilan to Central Mindanao. More so because, just before Bush’s speech, the White House supposedly gave Time magazine a dossier showing that al-Qaeda is now dealing with the Maguindanao-based Moro Islamic Liberation Front after junking the Abu Sayyaf as a bunch of unreliable bandits. Time did report in its March 2, 2002 issue that the MILF is the bigger terrorist threat to RP, given its 12,000 heavily-armed fighters. It traced Osama bin Laden’s links to the MILF through the two Palestinians and a Jordanian who were arrested last November in Luzon for stashing bombs and parts. It also detailed the training of Indonesian, Malaysian, Pakistani and Middle East terrorists in the MILF’s sprawling Camp Abubakar. Three Indonesians have since been arrested at the Manila airport also for keeping bomb components; all have links to compatriot Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi, a confessed explosives expert who in turn has links to Islamic extremists in Malaysia and Singapore.
The Time story coincided with MILF threats to fire at American and Filipino soldiers who happen to stray into its supposed camps in Basilan. That same week, MILF field officers launched three offensives when there was supposed to be a cease-fire for peace talks to move on. The MILF high command has since recalled its fighters, but only after insisting it was the AFP that attacked them. It also has since disavowed bin Laden and al-Qaeda in its website. As a show of good faith, President Gloria Arroyo stated Monday that she still trusts the MILF leadership’s desire for a peace settlement of its separatist fight. But that doesn’t change what the secret files say about bin Laden and the MILF.
However the xenophobes howl about US intentions in RP, they must consider the fact that 84 percent of Filipinos welcome any form of US help in the fight against Islamic terrorists. Perhaps this means that more than eight out of every ten Filipinos are more xenophobic about foreigners who fund bandits to kidnap, torture and behead civilians, than those who come to build roads and treat their ailments.
So, eat and drink what you like. It’s speaking English that’ll kill you.