A soldier is supposed to fight, not talk: His ‘peacemaker’ is his gun

Color-coding – or, more accurately, the odd-even "number coding" – on all vehicles entering and moving through Mandaluyong was re-imposed effective yesterday by a unanimous decision of the Metro Manila Development Authority Council, which is composed of the 17 Metro Manila mayors.

MMDA Chairman Bayani Fernando told this writer yesterday that this was because, when "number-coding" was lifted last February 3, with the exception of Makati City, most of the overflow of traffic funneled itself through Mandaluyong and created an awful gridlock. The MMDA, responding to a request of Mandaluyong Mayor Ben-Hur Abalos approved the restoration of the restrictions at a meeting, presided over by Manila Mayor Lito Atienza last Wednesday at the Century Park Sheraton.

MMDA Chairman Fernando’s proposal to re-impose number-coding on all public utility vehicles (PUVs) starting next Monday was also adopted. This means that beginning Monday up to February 21 (the concluding date of Fernando’s experiment in traffic management), all jeepneys, taxicabs, buses and other PUVs will be subject once again to the odd-even scheme. Private cars and vehicles, on the other hand, will continue to be exempted.

"We will observe how re-imposing the odd-even or number-coding on PUVs goes," Bayani pointed out. "If this is seen to ease traffic, then private cars will not have to be subjected to such prohibitions. However, if traffic continues to be heavy, the odd-even prohibition will have to be re-imposed on private cars as well."

Fernando knows he has been on the receiving end of resentment and furious attacks in the wake of the chaotic traffic mess provoked by his experimental lifting of all restriction from February 3 to February 21. "We wanted to see what the worst-scale scenario might bring," he explains, "so we can tailor our response to it." The experiment ends on February 21, after which, he said, the MMDA Council will decide what arrangement to make permanent.

Of course, tempers have been flaring, and anger has been boiling over, as a result of Bayani Fernando’s bold experiment. It’s not a joke to be trapped in traffic hell on a hot day – inevitably motorists and professional drivers have been bombarding Fernando (once hailed as the man of action and resolve who’s been clearing our sidewalks) with curses and war cries of disappointment.

But I think we need a man who have the courage to do what’s unpopular, yet keep an open mind towards their mistakes or the unfortunate repercussions of their undertakings. There was method in the case of the number-coding plan in Fernando’s madness. There’s no gain, after all, without pain. Having experienced the pain, let’s see if we won’t finally gain from it.

I once inquired, by the way, why the odd-even scheme was dubbed "color-coding". It turns out that when Police General Romeo Maganto was the Manila traffic czar, he had planned to impose a color-coding restriction based on colored stickers or decals to be sold for display on the windshields of every vehicle plying the roads of Metro Manila. In short, no "sticker", no go. The mayors turned "thumbs down" on the Maganto plan. However, the label "color-coding" stuck.

Incidentally, there’s a movie extolling Maganto’s derring-do career called Alamat ng Tomagan or The Legend of Tomagan. (I hazard the guess that Tomagan is "Maganto" juxtaposed.) It stars Jestoni Alarcon, a tall, handsome, bemoustached Tisoy action star. Not having seen that flicker, I wonder whether Jestoni plays Maganto. If so, perhaps that’s the legend.

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I saw General Dionisio R. Santiago, our Armed Forces chief of staff, being interviewed by Pinky Webb on ANC about the "Buliok" offensive to capture the Moro Islamic Liberation Front’s headquarters in Pikit, North Cotabato. Santiago, in his concluding spiel, said that all he and the military wanted was "peace" and urged the MILF to resume peace talks instead of fighting.

Of course, everyone wants peace. Who wants war, conflict, danger, and death? This is why so many are decrying the rush towards war on Iraq – but there are realities and exigencies of life and death that cannot be denied. When you’re threatened, you can’t back down from a fight.

I think soldiers like the general, while they’re surely entitled to their own opinions, ought to concentrate on their job, which is fighting for the Republic. They aren’t preachers, peace negotiators, or conciliators. Leave such matters to holy men like the Holy Father, the Pope, and the Cardinal he even sent to Iraq to ask Saddam Insane to cooperate with the United Nations, and thus assure peace on earth, good will to men. (Praying and striving for peace, after all, are in the Vicar of Christ’s "job description".) Soldiers should be soldiers – in Bill Shakespeare’s words, "stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, disguise fair nature with ill-favored rage . . ." – and not sound like candidates for Senator, or for the Nobel Peace Prize. It confuses the public, it confuses the fighting men under their command – but it doesn’t confuse the enemy. That’s the rub. The enemy has only one resolve: To win, and he doesn’t mind (or apologize for) killing you in the process.

When his turn came to speak on TV, MILF’s Spokesman Eid Kabalu declared that the Moro rebels kept on shooting because the Army and Marines kept on shooting despite the announced "ceasefire" by President GMA. But that’s what the military have been saying from the start. Both Santiago and Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes have been asserting: "The Army and Marines stopped firing when they received the President’s ceasefire directive – but the MILF insurgents still went on attacking them, and harassing them with mortars, automatic weapons fire, and sniper attacks, so they had no alternative but to shoot back."

Let’s face it. There’s an ongoing "war" in Mindanao. The Russians in olden days had a proverb: "Eternal peace lasts only until next year." In Mindanao, it lasts five minutes – if that long.

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Maybe it was a case of "too late the hero", but it's good that our Foreign Affairs Secretary Blas Ople finally ordered the Iraqi Embassy's Second Secretary Husham Hussain, to leave the country, declaring the guy persona non grata.

Why did it take Ka Blas so long? He procrastinated over doing it for so long that the public got the impression that it took a phone call from US President George "Dubya" Bush to GMA to prompt the move.

This is untrue, but the bad timing of the announcement made it appear that way (not to mention the mischievous front-page headline in yesterday’s STAR which implied this was so, despite Presidential Spokesman Toting Bunye’s denial in the body of the same news report).

If you ask me, this Iraqi diplomat (a misnomer), Hussain, should have been escorted to the airport in handcuffs and shipped out on the first outgoing aircraft, even on Air Zimbabwe. Instead, the timorous first move after the government had disclosed our intelligence agencies had intercepted incriminating cellphone conversations between Hussain and the Abu Sayyaf (the NICA, or the CIA, or both, who knows?) gave the Iraqi Chargé d’Affaires Samir Bolus the opportunity to snarl, "Prove it".

We don’t have to prove anything. A government, if it believes a diplomat is engaging in acts detrimental to it, can summarily expel the suspect. (Incidentally, with such rampant cell-tapping going on, beware how you use your cellphone on Valentine’s Day.)

Will Baghdad retaliate by expelling one of our diplomats or two? That’s what usually happens, anyway. Look at the merry way in which the Indians and the Pakistanis have been kicking out diplomats lately, on a tit for tat basis. Beats having to agonize over how to rotate your diplomatic personnel.

Diplomacy is a game, sometimes treacherous, but always essential. That Iraqi 02-10 was evidently up to no good. Good riddance, and no thanks for the memory. What’s this new revelation that he was planning to bring Filipino students to Baghdad this month for special schooling? In Demonstration, or in Terrorism?

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In yesterday’s Financial Times, there was a confusion of names.

Under the item, "Manila Expels Iraqi Envoy," the FT of London reported: "The Philippines yesterday asked a senior Iraqi diplomat to leave the country within 48 hours for alleged links to a local terrorist group blamed for a bomb attack that killed an American soldier last year. On Monday, Blas Ople, foreign affairs secretary, summoned Iraqi chargé d’affaires Samir Bolus to inform him of intelligence reports indicating that an arrested Abu Sayyaf guerrilla called Saddam Hussein shortly after the bomb blast that killed a US soldier and hurt three others exploded in Zamboanga City in the southern Philippines in October 2001."

Gee whiz. Do they have proofreading errors, too? The culprit’s name was Husham Hussain. Saddam may be Hussain’s top boss, but this is one they can’t pin directly on him.