Any government behind barbed wire sends the signal it’s under siege

The police deployed 60 cops in full battle gear on Perea street in Makati yesterday to guard the LTA building against attack on the basis of a report that militant groups were planning a rally to denounce the "Jose Pidal" scandal, or whatever.

The day before, policemen had again turned out in force to protect the same street, and, of course, the LTA building – where First Gent Mike Arroyo’s headquarters are located as everybody now knows – from being picketed and assaulted by hordes of protesters. The effect of this was that the demonstrators were kept shouting and hooting on surrounding streets.

Inevitably, this gives rise to the question posed by most people I bumped into yesterday: Where were all those cops when the Citibank Center, the HQ of the biggest American bank in this country, was raided and robbed by 15 heavily-armed men? Naturally, the logical answer to that query is that the police can’t be everywhere at every time.

Yet, with 60 or even more policemen from the Civil Disturbance Units of the Makati City police and the PNP National Capital Region office almost daily having to be rushed over to "guard" the LTA building, which by coincidence holds the offices of the husband of the President, who’s protecting the other 12 million Metro Manilans?

The deplorable aspect of this tight-guarding police is that Makati, the "Wall Street" of the Philippines, is beginning to look more like a war zone than a financial district.

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Coupled with these are those frontpage photographs of Marines setting up barbed-wire barricades around the EDSA Shrine in Mandaluyong City and troops patrolling the surrounding area of the Ortigas Center which, like Makati, is another of Metro Manila’s financial centers (where the Asian Development Bank, Robinson’s, Megamall, Shangri-La Towers and The Podium, and other shopping and restaurant blocks are located).

This gives the outside world – if any foreigners are still interested – the unflattering spectacle of a metropolis and a government under siege.

Racheting up the tension was yesterday’s melodramatic announcement that the Armed Forces have been placed on "blue alert" on the basis of "intelligence" that anti-government groups are planning to strike against not only the EDSA Shrine but the highrises around it. Every general seems to be grandstanding and declaring, like Marshal Henri Petain of France at Verdun in World War I: "They shall not pass". (Petain in the Second World War, remember, not only allowed the Germans to pass, but headed the Vichy government which collaborated with them.)

Now which is which? The rating of GMA has gone up even in the IBON survey, which is normally adjudged leftwing and anti-government – on the heels of her having gone up as well in both the Pulse Asia and the Social Weather Stations surveys. How can her government be so shaky then and under siege? Yet, the opposition is now demanding that she step down and consent to snap elections, something not provided for in the Constitution.

Then we had those photographs of certain opposition leaders meeting in the Club Filipino and turning "thumbs down" on the GMA Administration. There were a few goodfellas in the snapshot, but gazing at the old reprobates and grafters in the bunch, very few of that coterie rated a "thumbs up" either.

Then there’s the comedia of Sen. Ping Lacson’s former "witness" Eugenio "Udong" Mahusay Jr. doing a ding-dong. The repentant whistle-blower was "rescued" by GMA’s Cabinet Spice Boy, Housing Secretary Mike Defensor from the apartelle in Tagaytay, in a daring, though "gunless" feat in which Udong was freed from the gunmen who were allegedly holding him in custody – without a shot being fired or any protest from Udong’s "captors". Sus, what derring-do!

Now Udong is saying that he had decided to flee the custody of Lacson because he had heard the two guards talking about a plan to "silence" him later. Why should Lacson silence (kill?) his own witness! It just doesn’t make sense, but what does in this country?

Since the President had earlier declared she would not interfere in the case because she is "married to my country" (presumably more than to Big Mike), why is it that soldiers from the Presidential Security Group, along with Presidential Spokesperson Ignacio "Toting" Bunye himself arrived at the National Police Academy in nearby Silang (Cavite) where Defensor had brought the rescued Mahusay?

Well, Mike indeed could be entirely innocent and Mahusay could have been coerced to implicate him, as the unfolding new script is beginning to hint, the public is now completely agog at and confused by all those strange "coincidences".

The rumor-mills are now busy, incidentally, spinning the tale of an even bigger coup d’etat attempt soon, and the "plot" this time is to install Vice President Teofisto Guingona in place of President Macapagal-Arroyo to give the new regime "legitimacy". Will those gossips never shut up? Erap’s Vice President GMA replaced him as President, and now those nameless schemers are once more being touted as conspiring to install GMA’s Vice President, in turn, as her replacement.

That’s what happens when the government’s own leaders, soldiers and police become so paranoid and jittery. Their antics only serve to give credence to any harebrained scaremonger’s fairy story. If you believe them, then you should also believe in the Tooth Fairy.

But wait: I still believe in the Tooth Fairy, come to think of it.

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What the public doesn’t know is that, in the wake of the daylight raid on the Citibank on Paseo de Roxas in the heart of Makati, the US brought in more agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to coordinate with our security agencies – particularly since American President George W. Bush is scheduled to arrive here for his "state visit" on October 18 – a date, of course, still subject to change.

The Americans were worried that the bold assault on Citibank might presage a wave of attacks by terrorists on US establishments in the Philippines.

The police are now saying that the robbery of the Citibank Center last Monday might be an "inside job", since many of the 15 armed men who barged into the building (in a caper reminiscent of the Equitable Bank job last April) were let in through the basement door and were thus able to overwhelm the security guards and surprise the bank tellers.

What’s interesting is that when the police finally arrived in force, led by Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay, the mayor and the cops found themselves locked out by the Citibank officials and security men. While "Rambotito", as Jojo Binay is called owing to his Baby Armalite status, fumed outside, the Citibank’s doors remained unopened, reportedly, for almost half an hour.

Can you blame those shell-shocked bank executives and personnel for being so leery of men in uniform, or the mayor’s bodyguards? Many of the gunmen who had terrorized the bank’s employees and depositors, firing shots here and there, had been attired in fatigue uniforms. Salamabit. You can’t tell the good guys from the bad guys any more. Many of the bad guys are in uniform.

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The coming visit of President Bush has allegedly been pared down to just eight or nine hours. The reason being "given", but in whispers, is that it’s no reflection on the current security situation or the desirability of a longer visit with Bush’s trusted ally, President GMA.

The line is that Mr. Bush is headed for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Bangkok, and the "requests" from the heads of state of the participating countries for one-on-one meetings with the US President are accumulating. The result: Dubya will have to get to Bangkok much earlier than originally scheduled.

Let’s see how the final details of the visit shape up. I could write much more about the impending visitation, but for security’s sake I can’t say where or how. It’s known that a building by the Bay is being fortified for the American President’s short sojourn and will be guarded, additionally by warships from the US fleet. Malacañang was concerned, for a while, about where to put Mr. Bush. In the past, the Malacañang Guest House had been envisioned as a secure place in which to host state visitors – but the Guest House is now full of offices, from that of the Executive Secretary, other Cabinet personnel, and Palace habitués.

At a time like this, one wishes we had a President’s Guest House, just as the US White House has the "Blair House" on 1651 Pennsylvania Avenue, right next to the White House compound. The Blair House, as its brochure said (when President GMA and the First Gentleman, and their family were billeted there during her State Visit to the US capital), "is home to visiting chiefs of state and heads of government while in Washington".

The American Vice President, Mr. Dick Cheney, and Cabinet Secretaries can also use the Blair House, which was built in 1824, to entertain foreign leaders and diplomats. (It is actually the combination of four buildings into one seamless 110-room official guesthouse.)

I’ve long wondered why Malacañang doesn’t consider acquiring the huge mansion virtually next door (Is it the Goldenberg mansion?), which now houses a kind of museum. The former Superma’am, Imeldific, used it when she was First Lady during the Marcos hegemony. Does it belong to the government or to private parties? Malacañang could take it over.

Then we wouldn’t have to resort to dumping the next visiting Chief of State into some faraway palace made of coconuts.