Order of the day is confounded confusion

Yesterday, the Armed Forces of the Philippines announced that it was going from white to red alert because there was reason to believe that some military officers were contemplating another coup. The army’s chief information, Lt. Col. Daniel Lucero however, said the upgrading of the alert status was due to the protest rallies over the contemplated impeachment of Supreme Court Justice Hilario Davide Jr. and President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo called for calm and vigilance saying that there was no reason to be afraid of new destabilization threats. The focus should be on maintaining peace and order. We could not agree more.

The fact, however, is that we open the newspapers and television and what do we see? Even children and elderly women are marching on the streets demanding that Chief Justice Davide face trial for impeachment. Undoubtedly, the Davide issue has totally eradicated the Pidal hearing. All the legislative hearings are supposed to be in aid of legislation. But to this day, we know of no law that was legislated as a result of a legislative investigation. Nothing came out of the Pidal hearings and now the Blue Ribbon Committee is starting another investigation and that is the alleged attempt of some individuals in the Palace to extort money from the German aviation company Fraport AG for easing out its local partners in the Ninoy Aquino International Airport-Terminal 3 project. The investigation has hardly begun and already there in sharp disagreement between Senators Joker Arroyo and Aquilino Pimentel Jr. Pimentel believes the investigation is being delayed. He said Arroyo has a lot to learn "judging from the results of our work, comparing my work with his". Arroyo countered by saying, "Sen. Pimentel is familiar with the rules because he has chaired the Blue Ribbon Committe. But he pretends such rules do not exist just so he can pick a quarrel even if in the process he abandons his innate nationalist moorings by waving blindly the colors of the German state of Hesse which owns Fraport."

We just hope that all our differences and problems will be solved according to law and that there will be no destabilization attempts. We must make our democracy work. We have so many things that we can truly be proud of. One was People’s Power. In world history, we know of no other nation that toppled a dictatorship with no loss of lives or damage to property. We have many big problems. But we are confident that they will all be resolved peacefully.

A country has predicted that the Philippines will be the main target of foreign terrorists in Asia because of our intimate relations with the United States. We don’t doubt the presence of foreign terrorists in our midst. But thanks to our law enforcers they have been able to keep them under control. The terrorists would have given anything to sow terror during President Bush’s short visit. But the police took pre-emptive measures. We are on red alert. But things won’t get out of hand.