Was it magic or merely ‘illusion’?

Careful. If – as the visiting United States counter-terrorist expert, Ambassador Frank Taylor, suggests – we use the same Central Intelligence Agency technology which enabled the Americans to zap an al-Qaeda terrorist and five confederates right in the middle of the Yemeni desert, the "hellfire" missile we launch might not hit an Abu Sayyaf goon or MILF headhunter, but blow up a judge instead.

Would that constitute a total miss? Not entirely, if it’s one of the judges who keep on delaying the acceptance of charges against bomber-suspects, or seem to "favor" arrested terrorists – either out of craven fear or something else.

Taylor, who met with President Macapagal-Arroyo the other day, was referring to the CIA operation on Sunday (November 3), in which a missile launched by an unmanned Predator aircraft sought out and killed Abu Ali, a.k.a. Qaed Salim Sinan Harithi, the senior al-Qaeda operative in Yemen, a former bodyguard of Osama bin Laden, and one of the Top Twelve Qaeda figures in the world.

The Yemeni government later admitted it had given its approval to this enterprising strike. For the past two years, Abu Ali had been sought for arrest and questioning in connection with the suicide-ship bombing attack on the American destroyer, USS Cole, in October 2000, in which 17 American sailors had been killed. Several attempts some months ago by Yemeni police to penetrate the desert tribal villages in which Abu Ali and other al-Qaeda suspects had been hiding were repulsed by tribesmen protecting the al-Qaeda groups – with 18 casualties inflicted on the Yemeni law enforcement teams. (I don’t recall how many of the would-be arresting officers died).

Now the Americans, through the use of a remote-controlled plane called the Predator, managed to reach into the desert, pinpoint the target, and take Ali out. Examining the wreckage later, Yemeni Interior Ministry investigators reported they had found traces of explosives and the shards of communications equipment in the wreckage of Ali’s car, indicating that it wasn’t on some innocent mission.

The Predator apparently fired "Hellfire" missile from 10,000 feet above the target, the launch triggered by an operator who had eyeballed and initiated the launch from 150 miles away! The "camera" on the unmanned aircraft, it’s said, can zero in on a license plate and transmit it to the operator, clear as day.

Gee whiz – what those newfangled doo-dads can do.

The prospect of being tracked down and totalled in such a decisive manner ought to give the Abus, MILF scalawags, Pentagon Gangsters, and Jemaah Islamiyah toughies pause. Perhaps blowing them up, no questions asked, is the better way – although such methods will surely outrage the human rightists. (Tant pis, as the Frenchies say).

If the government arrests them, they’ll only "escape" later.

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The incident in Yemen has brought to the fore one of the new weapons being fielded by US, from the Predator to the also-unmanned X-45 UCAV or "Global Hawk".

Missile-carrying Predators were initially used in Afghanistan last year – one even reportedly killed Mohammad Atef, al-Qaeda’s chief of military operations, in a strike near Kabul a year ago.

Those 27-foot-long Predator drones have been circling Yemen for the past few months, we’re informed, seeking out "wanted men", and on November 3 they "got their man". There are reportedly two versions of a more streamlined Predator B being completed; one is equipped with a turbo-prop, while the other comes fitted with a jet engine. Either of them will be able to better the current 84-miles-per-hour cruising speed of the original model, as well operated at much higher altitudes, up to 45,000 feet. (The present $3 million Predator has a ceiling of 25,000 feet maximum, but can conduct reconnaissance and surveillance missions for 24 hours without refueling.

The new model Predator B will be equipped with a Lynx synthetic aperture radar capable of penetrating stormy weather or poor visibility, and sensitive enough, experts claim, "to spot footprints in the dirt". Moreover, this streamlined version will be able to carry up to 14 missiles, and its improved sensors will allow it to hit moving targets with greater precision.

The US Army is also testing the firing of an anti-tank missile from its own version, a short-range Hunter UAV.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Pentagon’s research office, on the other hand, has gone more than a step further. They’re experimenting on the Dragonfly, an 18-foot-long thingamajig that can hover like a helicopter but zoom like a jet, totally unmanned but guided by remote control. Then there’s the 35-foot-long Hummingbird, with variable speed rotor, capable of staying aloft for 30 to 40 hours at a stretch.

Now we know why George W. Bush wants to attack Iraq – if Saddam Insane doesn’t accept the weapons inspection plan demanded by the unanimous 15-nation resolution just passed by the United Nations Security Council. Dubya must be raring to try out those experimental weapons in Eye-raq. (If the Americans still can’t pronounce the country’s name, how on earth can they conquer it? They used to call Vietnam "Nam", so the Viets got ’em).

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I don’t know whether to be amused or give in to despair over Tourism Secretary Dick Gordon’s raving over an "increase" in tourist arrivals. Gee whiz, Richard. How can we be optimistic over the figures you cite? Gordon, invoking figures from the Bureau of Immigration, announced that tourist arrivals at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport posted an increase of 37.7 percent last month. In short, there were allegedly 1,578,198 visitor arrivals over the last ten months, compared to 1,512,145 for the same period last year. And we’re happy?

Even if we’re not "cheating" by counting Balikbayans and returning Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) among the arrivals, 1.6 million visitors would be a puny number for a nation of 80 million. (Sus, until the Bali bombings and the Asian Wall Street Journal and New York Times "revelations" about the Bali attacks and more nightclub bombings having been plotted in Southern Thailand – which Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra angrily denies – Thailand could boast 10 million tourists per year!)

For that matter, I just came from Guam where they wail the tourism industry is in the doldrums. Why? The Guamanians complain that they used to get more than 1.3 million tourists (mostly from Japan) a year, but now only one million arrive. When you consider that there are only 154,000 Guamanians (30 percent of them Filipinos) inhabiting that tight little isle in the Pacific, by Dick Gordon’s standards such a proportion of tourists would be fantabulous!

So let’s not brag too much. We remain a wasteland as far as tourism is concerned. There are more employees in our Department of Tourism, in fact, than Guam's, Thailand's, Vietnam's and Brunei’s tourism agencies combined. If we keep on hiring, we might even have more DOT personnel than tourists. What am I saying? They keep on going abroad on "roadshows" and tourism promotion campaigns: They’re the tourists.

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Speaking of Guam, our short trip there was an opportunity to visit our friend, Governor Carl T. C. Gutierrez, who’s as ebullient and dynamic as ever – and looks happier now that his second term is ending next month so he can come to Manila more frequently. Carl even let us his Ford SUV, with his very savvy Driver-Bodyguard Johnny at the wheel. (Johnny is a great fan of Metro Manila – note this, Dick – and sometimes flies here twice a month for shopping and fun.)

Although I’ve gone to Guam a number of times over the years, and been bored to tears on a couple of occasions, there’s always something new to discover which perks you up. (It’s much more convenient to take that three-to three-and-a-half-hour journey – depending on the headwinds – now that Philippine Airlines flies there thrice a week.)

Anyway, on this voyage they took me to a Las Vegas-type spectacular on Pleasure Island (which is what locals call the downtown Strip), in an aptly-named ballroom-cum-theater called the Sand Castle. This show alone makes any trip to Guam worthwhile – and entrance costs only $68, including hotel pick-up, if you opt not to take dinner and quaff just one non-alcoholic drink, saluyot-style.

I’ve been to many shows in Vegas, to the Lido, Moulin Rouge and Crazy Horse in Paris, to Soho in London, to Atlantic City, and so forth. The Sand Castle’s offering lives up to its billing as "The Best Show on Guam". It knocks your socks off.

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There are, of course, the usual chorus girls – well-stacked, boobsie, glamor-heeled, deliciously acrobatic, plus those well, sort-of-male dancers, handsome, Caucasian, and graceful – beefy as the Chippendales. (Their performance, with those winking lights as backdrop, Vegas and Broadway quality, was entirely entertaining). There was even a comedian who almost stole the show, doing this trick with the balloons on an unsuspecting "volunteer" from the audience – which I won’t describe because that would be giving away the surprise.

The most rivetting part of the show, however, was provided by the best "illusionist" I’ve seen since David Copperfield. (That’s what the magicians who’re serious about their craft call themselves: I once had a three-hour talk with Copperfield in his hotel suite. No, we didn’t discuss Claudia Schiffer who’s married somebody else, and Copperfield kept on saying he wasn’t a magician, just an "illusionist.")

In any event, after Copperfield, I’ve seen several magic acts all over, including this terrific guy in The Lido show named "C’est Magique" who would turn cards into silk scarves, then wave those scarves and they’d fly off over the heads of the audience as parrots, parakeets, and doves. I can say that next to David Copperfield, that fellow over in Guam was the best I’ve spotted. He’s handsome, athletic, dramatically attired in black, and effortless in his movements – and (I didn’t say more importantly) he’s got two of the most beautiful lady assistants performing with balletic precision and grace gyrating themselves into knots, suspending themselves in mid-air, high-kicking or compressing themselves in triangular containers which are set afire, or being punctured with swords, or being split into three parts then reassembling themselves "miraculously".

Would you believe? This Guamanian version of Mandrake the Magician (either American, British, or Central European with a Brit accent) has the prosaic name of "Tim Cole". I even had to research this to find out, since all the blurbs on the show seem to be written in Nihongo, and his name was in Kanji and Hiragana.

Tim’s two lady assistants were identically named "Tina". You can distinguish between Tina I and Tina II only by their hair color and the set of the nose since their other statistics appear to be entrancingly identical. (Tim kissed both of them with equal lack of passion, but with flair.)

Illusion? Ask my friends in the audience. They could have sworn, along with his writer, that what we witnessed was magic, not merely illusion. How can you explain Cole flying into the air, or putting Tina to sleep, then placing her neck on a pole, then – with a flick of the hand – making her body rise into the air and stay there suspended for long minutes while she slept (passing a blazing hoop along her body to show there were no strings)?

In one sequence, Cole packed Tina II into a cage, covered it with a canvas, waved his hand, then whisked off the tarp – and inside the cage the girl had been transformed into a beautiful white tiger. In another one, Cole packed a 1,200-pound, sleek Bengal Tiger (not a white one this time) into a cage, had the cage winched up 20 feet into the air. Then, following a wave of his hand, the cage came unhinged, and fell apart – but the tiger had completely disappeared.

Where do you put a large tiger, balls and all, when you make him vanish in mid-air, in a puff of smoke?

There were many other baffling "tricks", including one in which he seemed to be drowning in a fishbowl of water, then suddenly reappeared, dry and debonair, in the middle of the audience.

But Cole’s most impressive – uh, illusion – was a take-off on Copperfield’s own gimmick. In his act, Copperfield saws himself in half with a huge electronic buzzsaw, speaking and smiling all the time this occurs, even when his head and half-body are wheeled forward by aides, and his lower half, legs still wriggling, is wheeled several meters backwards – in full view of the astonished audience.

Cole’s wrinkle on this was to get a replica of an airplane’s jet engine going full blast, demonstrating how touching a piece of metal to the gyrating rotors drew sparks, then backing himself, suspended in mid-air, into the same fierce rotors, without getting himself sawed in half. Tina came over and helped pull him out – and he emerged fully intact, his shirt not even creased. Don’t ask me how this is done.

If you ask me, perhaps GMA ought to hire this gentleman – for the 2004 elections. Can you imagine the possibilities? The ballot boxes would be stacked up in front of Tim. He’d wave his hand languidly, the way he does it. And voila – all the ballots inside would proclaim: GMA!

What? No FPJ? The "king" of movies should get his own magician.