Bombs are never a matter for amusement. While we don’t wish to be – or, even beyond that, appear to be scared by the prospect of a terrorist "bomb" planted anywhere – we certainly don’t want to trivialize the danger either. The terrorist wins if he or she disrupts the calm and confident conduct of our daily lives – this we must deny such villains. A President play-acting, on the other hand, does not instill confidence in her being a hands-on, blood-and-guts, serious and decisive commander-in-chief.
Being a nation’s leader, as England’s Tony Blair demonstrated (see how he has aged ten years in the past fortnight), is no easy task. It requires intestinal fortitude, unflagging energy, stick-to-itiveness (to hazard coining a phrase), and a sense of timing and balance. Blair took in full measure "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" and weathered the hail of arrows of adversity and public condemnation. Yet, he was unbowed. He stood his ground doggedly and hewed, resolutely, to what he believed was right. Our President must do no less. We are a nation not merely threatened by economic setback, endemic unemployment, poverty not just of the body, but of the mind and spirit, while being threatened by graft, drugs, rebellion and other destabilizing factors that bore in from within.
We are desperately hungry for strong leadership. This is a situation which cannot be treated like a zarzuela, or, to use the old name for the morality play once so popular in the provinces, a comedia or moro-moro.
President GMA: Photo opportunities are your worst enemy. The camera may be a powerful instrument to project what a leader wishes to convey to her people. It can also reveal, in moments unguarded, a leader’s real or perceived flaws and weaknesses. Since a leader is the cynosure of all eyes and camera-lenses all day and all night (in a nation of paparazzi-bent citizens and osiseros), the fewer photographs snapped, the better. Sometimes an air of mystery works more wonders than an excess of public exposure.
The war in Iraq almost overshadowed the Oscar Awards night, and, indeed, one over-emotional Oscar winner even exploded, instead of sticking to his craft, into a sputtering and blistering attack on George "Dubya" Bush as a warmonger.
I wonder why so many actors and showbiz types are so enthusiastic about getting involved in politics when acting according to script, not thinking or doing on their own initiative, is supposed to be the real force of their craft. Maybe this is why so many politicians are bad actors.
Oh, well. We journalists can’t throw stones. We love to tell our government officials how to balance the budget and run the country, yet, at one time, we allowed the National Press Club to go bankrupt.
What struck me about those press briefings being conducted and aired daily and nightly in the Central Command (CenCom) center in Doha, Qatar, is how difficult it must be for colonels and generals to have to explain what they’re doing during a hard-slogging on-to-Baghdad offensive to a gaggle of nitpicking journalists, war correspondents, and, gadflies, what, where, why, when – and how. When they’re engaged in a shooting war, particularly one in which your enemies are not just armed adversaries, but sandstorms and the vast parched stretches of desert – I don’t see why warriors have to stop and explain every few meters why they’re doing this and that, and why they’re not doing this and that.
Having covered a number of murderous wars in the past, I couldn’t understand why media persons giving those sheepish American generals and colonels at the podium what we old-fashioned types in bromide used to call "the third degree" kept on harping that women, children, and civilian men were being wounded and killed. Why not? War is war.
When bombs, shells, rockets, missiles, bullets, and whatever start flying, there’s no guaranteeing where they’ll hit, and who will be knocked down. At the height of the January-February "Tet" offensive in 1968, 300 new correspondents flooded into South Vietnam to cover the fighting. Most were new at the game, so we "veterans" sat back and enjoyed hearing them ask silly questions, only to get silly answers in return – sometimes deliberately.
I recall with fond nostalgia those daily 5 p.m. briefings by officers of the Military Assistance Command-Vietnam (MAC-V) in Saigon’s Rex Hotel on Cong Ly (by the way, the "Rex" is once again a hotel, even noted nowadays for its popular ballroom dancing in Ho Chi Minh City, i.e. Saigon renamed in honor of Uncle Ho).
We dubbed those briefings, of course, the Five O’clock Follies, or the 5 p.m. "Laugh-In". They were as hilarious, despite the grim topic, as the Jay Leno show. I remember one newly-arrived newsman asking the briefing colonel how the US grunts and ARVN could tell the difference between the black pajama-wearing peasants and the Viet Cong. The American briefing officer looked across the room at his questioner and solemnly replied: "The Viet Cong is the one who is shooting at you."
This is the same problem they’re encountering in Iraq, I’ll have to say. American and British troops are approached by civilians pretending to greet them, or appearing to surrender, then these suddenly transform themselves into Fedayeen Saddam and start shooting at the soldiers, or attacking them with grenades and RPG rockets. Same old story, different location. Is there anything new under the sun?
In the end, an army’s duty is to go in there and kick ass. If the ass kicks back, they shouldn’t be surprised. How long will the war in Iraq last – or how short will the current campaign be (with coalition forces nearing Baghdad)? Ask me another.
In this land where "miracles" happen unexpectedly, and things are either a mirage or done with mirrors, I’m not surprised. But shouldn’t we be indignant? We’ve just had a Multitel "Pyramid" Scam which impoverished many, not merely depriving many of their hard-earned cash but others of their ill-gotten wealth. That scam embarrassed senators who had endorsed this lallapalooza of a "pyramid", the brother of an NBI Director, sundry police generals (shame on you, you slanderous detractors who now sigh, "back to kotong-kotong") and lots of brilliant persons who ought to have known better. P.T. Barnum was right when he remarked: "There’s one born every minute."
By the same token, I simply can’t believe the President could be persuaded to sign a draft Executive Order (EO 186) now waiting treacherously on her desk – hope she reads what she signs. This sordid Executive Order seeks to re-convert the Clark International Airport Corporation (CIAC) – would you believe? – into a subsidiary of the Bases Conversion Development Authority (BCDA). Why on earth for? As I write, Alikabok in Malacañang goes further: He tells me that another draft Executive Order has just been slipped under the papers on GMA’s table to set up a so-called Subic-Clark Alliance Development Corp. (SCAD Corp.). She is allegedly poised to sign this suspicious document any day now.
As it is, without tampering, things are going well at Clark. The American proverb is: "If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!" Clark was renamed "Diosdado Macapagal International Airport" (DMIA) on September 28, 2001, and has made substantial gains ever since. Only last year, DMIA earned P37.6 million in revenues from aeronautical fees and some P163.5 million from other airport fees. To date, P53.4 million has been spent in the rehabilitation of airport facilities to accommodate commercial airlines.
The Clark Development Corporation, under CDC President and CEO Manny Angeles (the founder of the prestigious Angeles University, incidentally) has been going places. Eight United Parcel Service (UPS) jets arrive and fly out daily, from all over Asia and the Pacific, just for starters. As Intra-Asia hub of the globe-girdling UPS, Clark is only two or three and a half hours away from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, Korea and other key points in Asia.
The CDC has just signed a P250 million loan for the upgrading of taxiways and parking areas. Talks are ongoing for the Japanese to provide P25 billion for the construction of modern passenger and cargo terminals.
The CDC is embarking on a grand project, aptly named "Aerotropolis – an aviation-led development."
This "Aerotropolis" will consist of 33,000 hectares of prime land located in the heart of Central Luzon, powered by the boomtown capabilities of Angeles City and its upmarket residents and entrepreneurs and a growing number of international locators. (Your Polo "Ralph Lauren" shirts and blouses, for worldwide distribution, are made here, for instance. Why, it’s no secret, even "Victoria’s Secret".)
The airport’s planners are predicting (bragging?) that when completed it will be several times bigger and better than the stalled PIATCO Terminal 3. (Incidentally, CDC’s management accomplished its current feats without any support from the BCDA, which now wants to seize the entire shebang.)
I must mention, of course, that Mt. Pinatubo is not too far away. If the mountain . . . er, volcano behaves (next eruption probably another 600 years from now, as per previous schedule?) the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport may be poised to become the country’s premier international gateway.
But not if the carpetbaggers grab it.