A US aircraft carrier battle group to Basilan? What can we say – but ‘wow’!

The highest-ranking United States official to come to the Philippines (since former US President Bill Clinton came for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation or APEC summit in Subic) is arriving Sunday afternoon. This is US Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, who, in the pecking order, is just a step down from Defense top honcho Donald Rumsfeld.

Wolfowitz is flying in straight from Washington, DC and has sought a meeting with President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. He will probably be whisked off to Malacañang shortly after his 3 p.m. landing.

Why is he coming here? Alikabok tells me that the most urgent point — among a salad of others — he has on the agenda is to "request" President GMA for permission to allow a US aircraft carrier to "visit" Basilan. Visit? I don’t believe, if my sources are correct, that US aircraft carriers go running around the Pacific and South China Sea, and dock at small islands like Basilan or even nearby Zamboanga City on a mere goodwill mission.

Surely it’s not simply to provide port "liberty" or "shore leave" for the normal carrier’s complement of 3,100 men in the ship’s company plus the 2,400 officers and airmen in the air wing. (Sus, though, when you think of it, that’s more military personnel than the military units we now have on the island chasing the Abu Sayyaf.)

And that’s not all. If an aircraft carrier comes, it has to be accompanied by several warships in what they call a Carrier Battle Group or Task Force. These include cruisers, frigates, destroyers or other anti-submarine units, refueling vessels, etc., plus their own substantial complement of personnel.

All of a sudden, the Sulu Sea, the Basilan straits, and that portion of the South China sea will resemble mare nostrum. I don’t know what Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz will really tell GMA, or what’s up the sleeves of the Pentagon and CINCPAC. And if this formidable force is going to be thrown against the Abu Sayyaf, it would be like using a baseball bat to swat a fly.

But what the heck. We’re sick and tired of those pesky flies whose insolence and continued defiance have humiliated our government and our nation many times over. If the Yanks want to help us swat them, I say go ahead. Up to now, in this baseball game, it’s been for us a sorry case of no hits, no runs, all errors. Perhaps we ought to invite Casey to go out to the plate and take a swing. If he misses, at least he had his turn at bat. Who knows? We might get lucky.

On the other hand, I’ll not try to second guess this gent Wolfowitz. The only thing we’re certain of is that something serious is afoot. He’s surely not coming here to borrow our Philippine Air Force, which – as has been repeated ad nauseam –is all air and no force. No insult intended to the gallant men and women who fly our wrecks at great risk to their own lives.

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If the Americans get the "green light" to dispatch a carrier to our waters, it may be the USS Kitty Hawk (CV 63), which is nearby, based as it is in Yokusuka (Yokohama), Japan. The Kitty Hawk is on a ready-status, having returned to Asia from combat support duties off Afghanistan less than two months ago.

Many of the aircraft that zapped Taleban and al-Qaeda targets, plus some of the missiles launched, came from this carrier which normally has an air wing composed of 24 F-14A/D Tomcats, 24 F/A-18A Hornets, 10 A-6E Intruders, 10 S-3A/B Viking helicopters and 6 SH-3H Sea King helicopters in support, 4 E-2C Hawkeyes (smaller type AWACs), plus 4 KA-6D tanker. Its armaments include three BPDMS (Basic Point Defense Missile Systems), Mk 29 type, each with a box of eight NATO Sea Sparrow missiles, and three 20mm. CIWs.

The Kitty Hawk was based in Subic during the Vietnam War days and its officers, moreover, know our waters very well. It has the added advantage of being one of America’s 14 big carriers which is conventionally powered (unlike the nuclear-powered Nimitz class carriers), and therefore would not violate our regulations banning all nuclear weaponry or military nuclear systems from our shores and sovereign waters.

The Kitty Hawk, of course, if it comes here will offend the usual objectors to US "intrusion" or "neo-imperialism". Sigue na. The advent of all those men aboard the US vessels would be a quantum boost to Dick Gordon’s desperate tourism program and would provide an added "wow" to "Wow-Philippines".

The Abus, the MILF, and some others, it must be said, won’t be amused.

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The Commission on Appointments issued yesterday two "warrants of arrest".

One warrant was directed against Secretary Gloria L. Tan Climaco, GMA’s Presidential Adviser on Strategic Projects, who had, the senators and congressmen averred, "evaded" a subpoena from the CA to testify in the "confirmation" case of Transportation and Communications Secretary Pantaleon "Bebot" Alvarez.

Secretary Climaco had been tasked by President Macapagal-Arroyo to investigate the smelly PIATCO "Terminal 3" contract and was ready with her adverse report when, suddenly, just over three weeks ago, she flew off to San Franciso on a PAL (PR 104) flight — and hasn’t returned since. Will the prospect of being served an arrest warrant now compel Ms. Tan Climaco to hop on the next plane home to testify before the "final" deliberations on Bebot Alvarez’s confirmation – or rejection – next Monday? Abangan.

Another warrant was issued for the suddenly-absent businessman (middleman?) Alfonso S. Liongson, the mysterious fellow who’s been getting a consultant’s fee of US$200,000 per month from Mr. Cheng Yong, the chairman of the Philippine International Air Terminals Co., Inc. (PIATCO) for heaven-knows-what. Since Liongson is an agriculture graduate from UP Los Baños, and holds only a masters’ degree in business management from the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila, what he knows about airport management or airport terminal construction, et al. is beyond me and almost every other observer. Since he may have already been paid in the neighborhood of P100 million (wow!), Liongson’s "expertise" in something must be stunning.

In any event, he, too, left town on "vacation" before he could be summoned to shed light in the Congressional Commission on his participation in the PIATCO affair and his "contacts" with Bebot Alvarez. Very interesting. Will Liongson, also, now come back? (It’s rumored he, too, is in the USA).

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The Chengs – daddy Yong and son Jeffrey —— have allegedly been bragging to the frazzled German investors from Fraport AG (who’ve poured more than US$250 million frustratingly into the now stalled construction of Terminal 3) that they have the "full support" of President Macapagal-Arroyo. Hah! C’mon, Madam GMA. Tell us the score.

If it’s true, then WHY?

Are you going to throw Gloria Tan Climaco, who uncovered the can of worms, to the wolves? It gives one pause to consider that "somebody high up" (in the Palace, maybe) has a vital stake in that controversial PIATCO deal.

The Germans, who feel cheated, are seething over the over-priced and now frozen deal. Fraport AG (the Frankfurt Airport Authority) – which is owned by Frankfurt itself, the German State of Hesse, and guaranteed (under HERMES) by the Federal government of Germany itself – is frantic about the boondoggle, particularly since the scandal may become a big political issue in the German elections this September. Even more urgent is the fact that the Fraport AG management will soon have to face its angry shareholders and stockholders at the annual meeting in Dusseldorf this June 23 – i.e., in less than a month’s time. If they don’t have a solution to the mess, which has cost them a loss of over $250 million (plus bank guarantees), there will be – I’m assured from over there – hell to pay.

A ranking German executive who sits on the board of several major corporations (these are high up in the FORTUNE 500 list) arrived in Manila two days ago to investigate and deliver a stern "message" to you-know-whom. When he talked to this writer yesterday, he remarked: "This may be a Watergate!" (For whom? Did he mean GMA or somebody else?)

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The PIATCO and Terminal 3 issue is in the German newspapers and media almost every day, I was informed. There will be a government "protest" issued very shortly – if necessary, from up to the level of German Chancellor (Kanzler) Gerhard Shroeder, or the bossman himself. Wouldn’t that be embarrassing, if this happens, to President GMA herself and the drive to attract foreign investment from the European Union and other Western countries?

Alas, I’m also told by other quarters, that the President is under heavy pressure from such powerful groups as the Iglesia ni Cristo. It seems that the INC, if its point man – the Erap-appointed and still "Ambassador-at-large" Felimon Cuevas – is to be believed, is heavily invested in the PIATCO deal and is supporting the PIATCO group. This is alleged to be a trade-off for INC’s supreme bishop, Ka Erdie, not rocking the boat in favor of ex-President Joseph Estrada.

If this is so, this is the acid test for the President. Will she have the courage and moxie to emulate her father, the late President Diosdado Macapagal, when he refused to crawl to the Iglesia ni Cristo? (If I recall, it cost him dearly in political terms. But Cong Dadong, I must say in admiration, proudly upheld the dignity of the Presidency of the Republic.)

These are times that try men’s (and women’s) souls. GMA must not lose sight of the fact that she is "on trial" here.

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THE ROVING EYE . . . Last night, the Lopezes invited quite a number of senators to a dinner at the 9501 restaurant in ABS-CBN. Among the stellar guests, of course, are Senator Noli de Castro and other friends like Kiko Pangilinan, Serge Osmeña, Rene Cayetano and other solons. I guess MERALCO, as somebody had foolishly suggested, won’t be "taken over" by the government, after all.