World terrorism may be this year’s main problem

According to the World Market Research Center, a research company based in London, the United States is the fourth country most likely to be the target of a terrorist attack within the next 12 months. Ranked after the United States was the Philippines followed by Afghanistan, Indonesia, Iraq, India and Britain. On the very top of the list of countries with the greatest terrorist-attack risks were Columbia, Israel and Pakistan. It is very obvious that terrorism may be our biggest problem for this coming year.

This is indeed sad because what we most need at present is peace and order with justice. There is no doubt that specially in Asia, the Philippines is the country most identified with the United States. The worst aspect about the terrorist problem is that it is senseless. All terrorists want is to destroy life and property. Seldom does it have any military gains. Nowadays, terrorists don’t even bother to own their acts.

Our best defense against terrorists are the military and the police. Sad to say, at the moment, they are part of the problem. Only last July 27, the country had to be declared "in state of rebellion" because a faction of the military that called themselves the Magdalo led a mutiny right in Metro Manila’s financial center.

There is no way of predicting how terrorists will launch an attack. Their goal is to kill as many persons and destroy as much property with a minimum amount of risk and exposure on their part. The September 11 attack in the very heart of New York was worse than the Pearl Harbor attack. In Pearl Harbor, it was military installations that were attacked. In the New York attack, the victims were innocent civilians.

We don’t know what precautions we can take to defend ourselves from terrorist attacks. The most logical defense is intelligence reports. It is in fact our only defense. The July 27 mutiny was actually scheduled to be launched on August 12. And several military factions were involved. Because of intelligence reports, the other factions had to lay low and the Magdalo group had to update their mutiny to July 27 and were left all alone by themselves. So it is obvious that army and police intelligence are the keys to stopping future terrorist attacks.

The saddest part about terrorist attacks in this country is that the arms that the terrorist use invariably come from the military. In short, the terrorist problem really stems from corruption in the military, which is what the Magdalo group was trying to expose last July 27. Yet, to this day, no one in the military has been arrested, charged and prosecuted for selling arms to their very enemies. That is the justice part of peace and order.

Let us have peace and progress in lieu of corruption and terrorism.