Sex or foreign policy?

No, I’m not asking you to choose. If this were the case, the choice would be obvious. I’m talking about the policy speech delivered by President GMA at yesterday’s luncheon with the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of the Philippines (FOCAP).

In the old days, when we were still members of that association (I used to be a columnist of Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post and the Bangkok Post), Teddyman Benigno (then bureau chief of Agence France-Presse and ex-FOCAP president) and this writer used to mispronounce it "F - - - - Up." That’s what we get for Ilocano roots. Sometimes matigas ang dila, in pronunciation I mean.

It was cheeky, indeed, for FOCAP member Ms. Raissa Robles who used to write for this newspaper but now, if I heard right, represents the South China Morning Post to have asked the, well, disrespectful question during the open forum: "Do you still have sex?"

If the surprise query startled her, GMA didn’t show it. She was quick to respond: "Plenty." Susmariosep. Ever since Bill Clinton was asked on TV where he put the cigar (it was run worldwide on CNN), it was the tops in media silliness.

The President later quipped good-humoredly (maybe she was offended only off-camera) that she hoped the reference to her sex-life wasn’t what they put in the headlines, because she had gone, she reiterated, to the FOCAP affair to speak about foreign policy.

In it, as expected, she firmly reaffirmed "our moral partnership" and "our strategic partnership" with the United States. Okay, GMA. I’m sure your Phone Pal US President George "Dubya" Bush got the message that you and he are still friends and staunch allies. (Perhaps, too, we’ll still be given some helicopter gunships, plus, who knows, a few Fighting Falcons — F-16s — thrown in. If we get those aircraft, General Benjie Defensor, AFP Chief of Staff and ex-Philippine Air Force commanding general, won’t have any excuse to buy those crummy, junkyard F-5 jets from Taiwan, which are 37-years old and, worse, whose wingspan only had a "life expectancy of just 20 years and ought to have fallen off long ago!) When you’re a pauper nation, everybody fobs his junk off on you, from junk Japanese and South Korean buses to junk bonds. But why should we be so eager and grateful for such crumbs? Sanamagan — we even pay for them!

* * *

The President didn’t forget, naturally, to underscore that "China, Japan and the United States, and their relationships will be the determining influence in the security situation – and economic evolution of East Asia."

She didn’t overlook mentioning, either, that "the international Islamic community will continue to be important for the Philippines; thus we continue to pursue broad inter-Faith dialogues to promote Christian and Muslim solidarity." Nothing was left out in this motherhood speech.

She reiterated that the "defense of the nation’s sovereignty and the protection of its environment and natural resources can be carried out only to the extent that it asserts its rights over maritime territory – and gets others to respect those rights."

The Chief Executive added that "thus, though this is unrelated to the war against terrorism, I am happy that the case against the Chinese fishermen has come to a satisfactory conclusion." (If you ask me, we gave in. Even Justice Secretary Nani Perez forgave the Chinese ambassador for banging on the table. Geez. Table-banging must be an infectious disease in this country. We better re-check our table replacement inventories.)

President GMA even waxed sentimental when she referred to the American serviceman, Mark Jackson, who had been killed in the bomb-explosion in Zamboanga City. "His death," she declared, "shall be a monument to the partnership of the Philippines and the United States . . . This partnership is specially important in our righteous fight against terrorism and poverty."

Unto the breach once more! As the Bard Bill Shakes’ famous king cried out on St. Crispin’s Day in Henry V (Laurence Olivier 1944 movie, or Kenneth Branagh 1989 version). Or onward to Baghdad? Dubya, we’ll be in step with you – come hell, high water, and the New York Times/CBS, or USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll notwithstanding.

Last Tuesday’s USA TODAY reported that America was "less supportive" this week than in September of the idea of invading Iraq with US ground troops to remove Saddam Insane from power. On Sept. 8, 58 percent were for it. In the latest survey taken two weeks later, this had dropped to 53 percent. If 5,000 casualties should "occur", the same poll discovered, this support would drop to 33 percent.

How will Americans vote on November 4 election day? The above-mentioned poll says that "Americans appear equally concerned about the lagging economy and the prospect of war."

* * *

If protecting ourselves is so important, how come Zamboanga, Tawi-Tawi and Sulu are now awash in smuggled rice, tons of it, from Thailand, Vietenam and Malaysia?

The contraband rice syndicates are having a field day. What anti-smuggling drive? Freighers come and go with these rice shipments and don’t even have to dock. They are met in international waters or in the Sulu Sea by motorized lanchas (as the Zamboangueños call those large motor launches much bigger than the usual kumpit) which receive thousands of sacks of rice for delivery ashore. Many are unloaded in Cawit, some six kilometers from Zamboanga City.

There was even a near shoot-out between a police CIDG team and the Marines. It seems the Marines tried to seize and confiscate a shipment of smuggled ukay-ukay "second-hand" clothes (you know what comes with ukay-ukay) and bakawan. Guess who were "escorting" the contraband hoard?

Down there in Zambo, allege my duly-certified moles, so many are "on the take" from the cops, the customs, the military, the bureaucracy, officialdom, etc., that – as one aggrieved businessman groaned – "the only ones who aren’t asking for something are the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts." Give them time, kabayan. Unless things change and punishment fits the crime, they too will grow up some day. Then they’ll emulate their elders.

What’s going to happen to our discouraged rice farmers and our local food growers? Even in Batangas, which is not noted to be a rice-growing province, there’s a warehouse in a town not far from a well-known beach bulging with scores of thousands of bags of rice. Rice "harvested" from the sea?

Jueteng, too, is rampant. Somebody asked me yesterday, incredulous at the revelation: "Isn’t the governor of Batangas a leading member of Opus Dei?"

Must be in Rome, I answered.

* * *

A daily newspaper yesterday ran as its banner headline: "Don’t Trust Just Any Cop – Ebdane." The accompanying article quoted Philippine National Police Director General Hermogenes Ebdane as saying: "Don’t trust just any policeman: look instead for somebody you can trust."

Another daily bannered: "10 Men Grab 3 from PUP." It recounted how 10 men, posing as policemen and National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) agents, entered the campus of the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) in Sta. Mesa, Manila, in three Mitsubishi L-300 vans with "government license plates", and "arrested" the canteen owner, Omar Remtuza, and two unidentified students.

Investigators from Station 8 of the Western Police District said later that it was not a "legitimate operation" since there had been no coordination with any of the police stations in the district.

But, General Ebdane, how can you tell whom to trust then? When kidnappers come in uniform, they also carry guns.

What happened – I ask again – to that old concept: "The cop on the block"? We need cops who know the neighborhood – and whom the neighborhood knows.

* * *

Speaking of wayward cops, how did the newly-organized Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) allow drug lord Henry Tan to "disappear" last Sunday from his detention cell in Camp Crame (a re-run of the Pentagon Gang escape from the same place!)? That police camp, the PNP’s headquarters, must be full of holes.

How did this bozo, Tan, get away from his "guarded" cell? By sawing off the iron grills and squirming out? Or, more likely, by waltzing out the front door? What’s worse is that it’s now being bandied about that the reason that drug boss did his Houdini act "solo", leaving his two confederates and townmates behind, still languishing in detention in the same calaboose, is because Edwin and William Chua couldn’t come up with the needed "amount".

Tan was the proverbial "big fish" the President keeps on ordering the PNP and law enforcement agents to catch. He was caught, along with Edwin and William Chua, last November in San Narciso, Zambales, while transporting no less than 350 kilos of menthapethamine (shabu) to a business partner in Manila. Calculated at its going price per gram, the Tan cache was estimated to have street a value of P700 million!

Sure, some 3,500 packets of shabu were prevented from flooding the streets, but that all was negated when "big fish" Tan allegedly "sawed off" the window grills of his cell in the early hours of September 29 and "escaped". (By the way, Tan is native of Xiamen, in Fujian province, China – although not one of Dick Gordon’s tourism beneficiaries, what was equally disgusting was the discovery that the security measures were so lax. Cells lacked padlocks, there were no records of head counts. There was a breach of standard operating procedure (SOP) which requires the logging down of numbers every two hours. Guards were found to have swapped duty hours on the day of the get-away. Salamabit.

Did heads roll? There was the usual flurry of what might be called . . . er, retribution. PDEA Chief Anselmo S. Avenido now face criminal charges before the Quezon City Prosecutor’s Office, following an investigation of the PDEA Internal Affairs Services.

Charges of evasion through negligence have been filed against Duty Officer of the Day (OD) PINSP Rolando Cana, SPO4 Pedro Doctolero, SPO3 Ruperto Galliguz, SPO3 Jesus Acuña, SPO2 Benjamin Agbulos, SPO1 Nelson Alcantara, and PO3 Armando Ibasco, all members of the PDEA Operational Support Services detailed as cell guards at the time of the incident.

They also face administrative charges in the PNP along with their superior officers, Police Supt. Donatilo Balabala and Police Supt. Christopher Tambungan, Service Director and asst. service director respectively.

Yet, wait a minute. If found guilty of the criminal charges, the erring seven, can only be sentenced to a mere six months of imprisonment for sleeping on the job. Isn’t this just a slap on the wrist? Sus, if a drug runner or user is caught with just 50 grams of shabu, the penalty would be death! Isn’t there a disparity somewhere?

Our lawmakers ought to revise upwards that ridiculously low, laughable six-month penalty for those who let prisoners or detainees escape to something that hurts. Otherwise, we’ll see "big fish" and "small fish" getting away by the dozen in the weeks and months to come.

Interior and Local Government Secretary Joey Lina, who’s concurrent chairman of the Dangerous Drugs Board, will have to get going — as he promised earlier — to prod our Congressmen into putting more teeth into the law.

May I suggest that if a jailer or police guard allows a "big fish" to escape, he gets slapped with the same penalty the escaped rat would have been meted out by the court.

That would stop the hemorrhage, I’ll guarantee it.