Why resent warnings about ‘endangered’ tourists? Worry about endangered Filipinos!

Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was in a rage yesterday over a front-page story in yesterday’s The Asian Wall Street Journal headlined: ‘Militant Used Thailand as Base for Bali Attack.’

The report, by Jay Solomon and James Hookway, quoted ‘Asia-based intelligence officials’ as stating that ‘al-Qaeda’s top Southeast Asian operative used southern Thailand as an privotal staging area for last month’s bombing on the Indonesian resort of Bali that killed more than 190 people…’

The officials said ‘a mid-January meeting at a safe house near Thailand’s border with Malaysia was particularly important because it was led by Riduan Isamuddin, an Indonesian Islamic cleric implicated in several other Southeast Asian terrorist plots.’

The story added that Mr. Riduan… allegedly exhorted Arab and Southeast Asian militants attending the Thailand meeting to attack nightclubs and restaurants after a more ambitious plan to bomb US, Israeli and other targets in Singapore was foiled in late 2001.

‘The militants’ use of Thailand as a staging area,’ ASWJ pointed out, ‘illustrates how Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network has exploited Southeast Asia’s porous borders to plan operations."

The meeting demonstrated "the impressive mobility of Riduan, also known as Hambali, who is one of the world’s most wanted terror suspects," it was noted. A senior Asia-based security official was quoted by the ASWJ correspondents as declaring: "We know that he is alive and he is always on the move. He doesn’t spend more than one night in a single place."

The article cited interrogations conducted by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of suspected al-Qaeda agents who had worked with Hambali before, such as Kuwaiti-born Mohammed Mansour Jabarah (arrested in Oman and handed over to the Americans). It was Jabarah who confessed he had attended the Thailand meeting with Hambali at which the plot to bomb nightclubs had been hatched.

"The FBI says Mr. Jabarah also told authorities a skilled bomb-maker he identified as ‘Saad’ also met with Mr. Riduan (Hambali) and other Jemaah Islamiyah militants in southern Thailand."

If the place is near the Malaysian border, it must be in the vicinity of Phuket – Thailand’s most prized resort. No wonder Premier Thaksin is in a blue funk over the Asian Wall Street Journal’s allegations. He condemned them yesterday as harmful "speculation", repeating his mantra that no terrorists are operating from Thailand. (Bangkok was quick to crow, though, that the hotels in the Thai capital were "booming", since tourists who used to gravitate to Indonesia were now going to Thailand. So much for ASEAN!)

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Malaysian Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, in turn, lashed back at Australia for its travel advisories against Aussies visiting Southeast Asia danger spots, including Malaysia.

Mahathir roared that Australia was also a dangerous place – especially for Muslims.

I think the entire debate is becoming childish. The entire world has, indeed, become very dangerous: terrorism threatens everyone everywhere. But if Australians, Americans, Europeans, and whoever else are warned by their governments not to come to the Philippines or elsewhere in Southeast Asia, like Indonesia, Malaysia et cetera, why should we resent it? Their governments are entitled – indeed, required – to tell their citizens about perceived danger. What the heck, if tourists don’t want to come here, how can we force them? We can’t compel their governments to shut up either.

Yesterday, on ANC, the ABS-CBN news channel, I heard Tourism Secretary Dick Gordon fulminating for the umpteenth time that we scare away foreign tourists because we’re too hard on ourselves. He assailed the media for overplaying bad news, e.g. calling the Philippines "the kidnap capital of Asia", and so forth. That’s the way to go, Dicky Boy: As usual, blame the media.

The awful truth is that no matter how desperately any government tries to sweep the dirt, grime, and sleaze under the rug, not to mention terrorism, rebellion and crime, we can’t cosmetize what’s essentially wrong. The fact is that Filipinos are endangered in their own country. It’s time we cleaned up our act, and made our archipelago safe and happy for our own inhabitants. Then and only then should we invite foreigners to our shores, to sample our local delights in safety and security.

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Almost everyday for the past three weeks, I’ve had people texting me, telling me, or passing on sly remarks to me, about a "coup" against GMA which is scheduled take place "any time now". We’re perhaps the only country where "coups", real or imagined, are announced way in advance.

A coup d’etat or kudeta, as locally spelled, is supposed to take everybody by surprise. When it’s noisily calendared, it loses both steam and credibility. Why was the RAM (Rebolusyonaryong Alyansa Makabansa) even dragged into the picture? The RAM motto is "our dreams will never die". The fact is that their dreams are growing old – as are the RAM leaders and members. Who can imagine Yesterday’s Heroes, now afflicted with middle-age spread or even arthritic aging, huffing and puffing as they run forward…er, limp forward to assault the gates of Malacañang? Even the former "rebels" of the YOU, or Young Officers’ Union, must how be approaching male menopause.

All that coup talk is cuckoo. It’s when they stop talking that we ought to grow concerned. Judging from all the jawing that’s currently being done, it’s not yet "time" for anybody to panic.

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Five of the suspects in the deadly bombings which wracked Zamboanga are in custody, the government says, while three other suspects are still at large. The question is: How soon will those five suspects now in police and military hands "escape"? That’s what the public is cynically asking.

After all the effort exerted, and even bloodshed, to capture "terrorists", bombers, drug dealers, kidnappers and other criminals, our jailers and lawmen too frequently "permit" prisoners and detainees to get away. Our government is becoming a joke – and, sadly, the joke is on us.

Now that the President is back – temporarily – from her travels, will she resume her photo opportunism by presenting captured rebels or crooks to the media? If she does, she must make sure those detainees she exhibited remain in detention. It’s worse than a trick of the camera, alas: Now you see them, now you don’t. Here today, gone tomorrow. The nation weeps!

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National Security Adviser Roilo Golez rang me up yesterday to stress that Ambassador Frank Taylor was not coming here with any "hidden agenda", such as discussing confidential matters with President GMA. Taylor, Roy said, "decided to come over due to my persistent invitation: I personally called him up to ask him to participate in the regional Conference on International Terrorism urgently scheduled by the Chief Executive last October 24, the day she departed for Honolulu enroute to the APEC summit in Mexico."

The United States was asked to participate only in the final stages of planning, Golez recalled, so "I worked the phone overnight on October 29th to convince Ambassador Taylor to speak at the conference".

Golez said he had met Taylor for the first time when the Ambassador accompanied US Secretary of State Co-lin Powell to his meeting in the Palace with GMA.

"Taylor and I met again last August in Honolulu," Golez narrated, "when he hosted a US-ASEAN meeting on international terrorism."

In short, Roy maintained, this Saturday‘s "anti-terrorism conference" is Taylor’s reason for being here, not a "cover" for another mission.

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Alert readers yesterday, including CGS Sabidong and Jim Carter of Atlanta, Georgia, were quick to e-mail this writer, pointing out that I had misspelled the name of Dubya Bush’s brother, the just-reelected Governor of Florida, as "Jed Bush", when his name is Jeb Bush. It was a typographical error (mine). If you’ll notice, in the fourth paragraph, I correctly called him "Jeb".

I ought to know since more than a year ago, I devoted most of a column writing about Jeb and how, when he was a senior in Andover, he and 11 classmates had spent three months on an exchange program in central Mexico, living with local families, helping construct a school building, and "flirting" with the local lasses. That’s when Jeb met the lovely 16-year old girl, Columba Gallo (a diminutive five feet tall), who was to become his wife. Why, as I remarked in that earlier column, the future Mrs. Bush didn’t even speak English at the time. In those days, Governor Bush was called "Jebby".

Anyway, mea culpa and thanks to my readers for being so faithful as to call my attention to my errors. Jeb’s real name, as a matter of fact, is John Ellis Bush. He was born in 1953 in Midland, Texas, where his dad, ex-President George Sr., had first gone to "strike oil" and make his fortune.

One of his biographers, David Margolick, recounts that Jeb was actually the third child of George and Barbara Bush. An older sister, Robin, died of leukemia only eight months after Jeb "came along". Jeb attended school in Houston, where his family moved when he was six. In 1966, when George Sr. was elected to Congress, mother Barbara, Dubya, Jeb and their three younger siblings, moved to Washington, DC. "Even then I had the wisdom to dislike Washington," Jeb Bush later remarked.

Nearly seven years "divides" President George W. and kid brother Jeb. As a boy, Margolick relates, "Jeb is said to have worshipped his older, funnier brother." I think he still does — but on a more subdued level.

Jeb’s big victory in Florida reflects Dubya’s big victory nationally. They’re on a roll.