No more excuses, no more ‘escapes’

Our STAR Washington Bureau sent a dispatch yesterday quoting the Washington Times, a daily not as influential or well-circulated as the Washington Post (it belongs to the Reverend Moon), but read in that capital by a significant number of legislators and officials.

The rightwing newspaper said, in an editorial, that "Mrs. Arroyo's popularity is beginning to slip due to the violence" engendered by "terrorism". The Times averred that President Macapagal-Arroyo's "unwavering resolve" to counter terrorism was being hampered by lack of resources.

I think this editorial comment is too kind. The fight against terrorism lacks not just resources (the intelligence fund is ridiculously meager, for example) but lacks will. The President is still listening to too many in her pangkat, like General Ed Ermita and Special Concerns "adviser" Norberto Gonzales who foolishly believe that talking "peace" with rebels and terrorists will lure them from their wicked ways. The government has been jawing and bleating for a decade now, from Cory to FVR, with a short hiatus (at least) during the shortlived Estrada administration, then for another year and ten months under GMA. Are we any closer to "peace"? Instead the bombings and clashes have escalated.

There's only one way to defeat terrorists. This is to crush them – stamp them out! If we catch them, they only "escape" to kidnap, kill and bomb again. The only way to cope with rebels is to defeat them – then, and only then, will they plead for a chance to surrender, on our terms not theirs.

* * *

The GMA government is faltering because it is weak-kneed.

It has not dealt resolutely with corruption, despite all those dramatic pronouncements: Indeed, the PIATCO Terminal 3 double-dealers are rubbing their hands gleefully in anticipation of victory (although the disgusted German Fraport AG investors who anted up the money are poised to sue our government in Germany and thus scare away all potential European investors); the PEA directors refuse to resign, defying the President herself; the whispers about this and that scam are getting louder.

The President is scheduled to come home today from the APEC, and from "barnstorming" Filipinos living in San Diego, San Jose, and other California communities, telling them the "good news" about the Absentee Voting bill having been passed – confirming their right to vote. Will they vote for her? Or FPJ? Or Ping Lacson? Or, let's not forget, Raul Roco?

Day after tomorrow, GMA will be packing again to depart for their Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. She's also scheduled to visit Hanoi (Vietnam), and possibly Ho Chi Minh City – or Saigon – on the way home. What for? To contract the 1.3 million tons of rice which Agriculture Secretary Leonardo Montemayor admitted might have to be imported? Surely not in aid of reelection?

Nobody can begrudge GMA's going to the APEC in Mexico, and the ASEAN meeting in Cambodia. These are opportunities for the leaders of the major countries to interact with each other as well as discuss common problems. But she musn't be bemused by all that partying and fanfare into believing that the problems back home will resolve themselves without her taking a firm hand – and this includes being tough with her own family members. Just as charity begins at home, so does political survival – and succees or failure.

Need more be said?

* * *

It's ludicrous that Interior and Local Government Secretary Joey Lina, under whom, after all, the Philippine National Police (PNP) operates, should even try to "explain" why the Saranggani provincial police were so lax, thus enabling that deadly suspect, Abdulbasit Usman, to get away.

What's this silly contention that Usman had not yet been formally charged, and therefore was not a detainee? Sanamagan: that guy was the principal suspect in the April 21 bombing of the Filmart shopping center which killed 15 persons and wounded 60! Now he's free to "bomb" again.

According to an interesting report in yesterday's Manila Standard, at least one detainee escapes every 72 hours. "And one out of two escapees evades capture."

This information was transmitted in connection with a request from Malacañang for Congress to approve the recruitment of 500 additional jail guards next year. The Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP), the report went, has only 6,399 jail guards on its roster. With 41, 594 detainees as of August 2002, the guard-to-detainee ratio on "a per shift basis" is 1:33, the BJMP complains. Of the total number of jail guards, 1,461 are designated to escort detainees to court hearings – one guard for every three detainees. On any given day, officials from the bureau testified 4,159 detainees have to go out of prison to attend court hearings.

Moreover, the House committees on appropriations and on legislative franchises were informed, the bureau must maintain jails in 136 districts and 82 cities, aside from 256 youth homes nationwide.

We're all for the hiring of more jail guards, but what about the guards (and wardens) we already have who are "sleeping" on the job? Here we had three notorious Pentagon Gang kidnappers, plus a drug lord, Henry Tan, "escaping" from Camp Crame – the very headquarters of the PNP. (That Chinese gangster had been caught with P700 million worth of shabu!) Then we saw two Sayyaf ruffians escaping from Camp Bagong Diwa, "disguised" as women. Last week, we had Usman slipping away from the cops in Saranggani!

In Vietnam, in sharp contrast, the authorities handle drug dealers in summary fashion. Earlier this year, seven drug syndicate members were nabbed (among them three policemen). Within two weeks, all of the "suspects" had been "tried", convicted, then publicly executed. None of them "escaped".

Sus, they don't mess around in Vietnam, do they?

* * *

It was raining in Ho Chi Minh City, too, when we drove to the airport and the roads were slick. Tropical showers are frequent in this season, as are occasional typhoons – but these never faze the Saigonese on their motorbikes. (The humidity is 90 percent, in that city 10 degrees above the equator.) When it pours, the locals sling ponchos or plastic sheets, or rainjackets over themselves, and skid along fecklessly – and recklessly. (There are said to be 30 accidents a day, many of them fatal.) On the way, we saw a cabbie waiting disconsolately beside his once-immaculate dark-blue Mazda taxicab. A motorbike had skidded into his vehicle and gashed the once-gleaming paintwork horribly. We didn't see the hapless motorbike rider – hopefully someone had carted him off to the hospital.

Rain or shine, the motorbikes go whizzing or perilously sliding along, as well as the fewer and fewer bicycles.

The sun came out just before we got to the terminal and a bevy of pretty girls came purring along on their motorbikes, all wearing white T-shirts with the label, Trang Bang University, printed on them. Must have been their physical education uniforms, because most female students still go about in their fetching national dress, the ao dai. On the other hand, you spot glamorous GROs and hospitality ladies on motorbikes and scooters with their micro-minis riding up to oh-my-golly and their audacious decolletage revealing to male oglers what the French used to call la belle poitrine. Truly, the Vietnamese beauty – whether Eurasian or breath-taking Nam Viet with ivory skin – ranks among the unparalled femmes of this planet. Women do most of the work in that country, whether planting rice (of which they always have a delicious surplus), running the shops and other businesses, managing the home or the office, and, in general, running the country while pretending it is the men who do it. The men are good mostly for fighting, drinking, and politics, in all of which endeavors they are industrious, intrepid, and sometimes annoying.

The language is tonal, which often makes them sound like birds chirping. We used to go to Mass in Notre Dame cathedral every Sunday, and when the congregation prayed the Rosary it was as though they were singing a musical. On the battlefield, when the Viet Cong attacked, they would call out over the din of combat, di, di, di, which was not a mantra but meant, forward, forward, forward. That wasn't a joke. They never fell back. They just kept coming, even when being mowed down. Now, they've got the doi moi or renovation and modernization program, which the Vietnamese are waging with the same tenacity with which they once waged war. They're determined to beat the swords into ploughshares, or, as one writer, Robert Storey, in Lonely Planet city guide cleverly called "beating swords into market shares."

For instance, they may not yet have Starbucks but they've already got a string of trendy coffee houses everywhere which are just as dandy, named Trung Nguyen. (Come on over, friends tell one another, and have a cuppa at Trung's.) There are even three thriving Jollibees owned by a Filipino-Vietnamese businessman, one of them not far from the airport. Boy, do they love those hamburgers. Nope, there are no MacDonald's or Burger Kings, but homegrown burger joints exist aplenty.

San Miguel beer, of course, is being brewed and bottled with great success, in Nha Trang on the seacoast, slowly cutting into the supremacy of that good old Vietnamese beer, "33", which we used to call Bameba in the days when we imbibed six bottles each and woke up the next morning with a hang-over. In those salad days, our favorite rot-gut, though, was that cheap red Algerian wine, which made the boredom between covering firefights more bearable. (One of the favorite watering holes, with hostesses, was the Arc-en-Ciel in Cholon).

"Lion" beer from Singapore is also increasingly popular, and is currently winding up its Oktoberfest celebration.

People have been asking me if there are good hotels in Ho Chi Minh City – which, to lessen the pain of having to pronounce that kilometric title, locals compress into HCMC, to please the government. Let's face it though: Everybody says "Saigon". Certainly there are excellent hotels there now, on a par with Metro Manila – well, practically. The high-end, deluxe hotel is the Caravelle Hotel on downtown Cam Son Square (just beside the Opera House, formerly the National Assembly building). This is a luxury hotel, and rates range from $160 to $980. Another 5-star place is the Omni Saigon Hotel (nearer the airport). I can vouch for both Caravelle and Omni, since I've stayed in them.

Other 5-stars are the New World ($55 to $600); Legend Hotel ($180 to $850); Renaissance Riverside, Sofitel Plaza Saigon, and Equatorial. Far less pricey are the Grand Hotel, 3-star but right on Dong Khoi, the main drag (a mere $49 to $250), the Majestic (4-star); Norfolk, Saigon Prince-A Duxton Hotel; and the Rex Hotel.

The Rex which is strategically on Nguyen Hue street, corner of Le Loi boulevard where the central market (Ben Thanh) is located, and next to Ho Chi Minh Square where there is a statue of "Uncle Ho" holding a child. We used to go there for MAC-V briefings run by Joint US Public Affairs Office (JUSPAO) during the "Tet" offensive in 1968. The Rex was the BOQ or Bachelor Officers' Quarters for US personnel during the "war", and one of the focal points for the international media. The media briefings were known as the "Five o"clock Follies", or Military Laugh-In. Today, the Rex features a grand ballroom, where you can go ballroom dancing – with attractive DIs or dancing instructors.

I guess I better stop here, lest I get a "Red Star" pioneer medal from the Vietnam tourism association.