UK renews travel warning to citizens visiting RP

The United Kingdom has reasserted its warning to British citizens who are contemplating travel to the Philippines. Its advisory to its citizens said that there was a "high general threat from terrorism and kidnapping throughout the country". The frontpages of our newspapers confirm that their fears are not exaggerated.

Right inside the Philippine National Police headquarters in Camp Crame, a fire broke out injuring three firemen and a policeman. The fire took place in an old building that housed grenades, bullets and bombs. It is a good thing no one died. If people are not safe even in the police headquarters, how can they be safe in our streets? To top it all, the headline story in most newspapers is about the Super Ferry 14 that caught fire in mid-sea. The Muslim extremist group Abu Sayyaf lost no time to claim responsibility for the disaster. Needless to say, these two tragedies upstaged even the current election news.

It is difficult enough to attract investors to the country under the present world economic situation. To make matters worse, the peso went down when Da King FPJ merely announced that he was running for office. We must say that we are happy that to this day, the elections have been peaceful. There has been a minimum of name-calling. There have been big demonstrations for some candidates, but they have all been relatively peaceful. At worst, a few isolated demonstrators have stoned or attacked the police. But the police have followed their maximum-tolerance instructions from Malacañang.

A few days ago, we commemorated the EDSA I Revolution. We have the unique distinction of being the very first nation in world history to have toppled a dictatorship without any loss of lives or destruction to property.

We did these twice. We hope that we can conduct these coming elections with the same spirit.

There are groups that are spreading rumors of an EDSA III. But we agree with President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s assurance that her administration can more than handle any subversive situation. What is important is that the coming elections be peaceful and orderly and that the results be the way the people actually voted. There is going to be a national debate soon for all presidential candidates, meaning all those who wish to participate in the debate. This is about the best way we can think of for letting all the candidates inform the nation as to, first, the problems truly confronting our nation and second, their individual solutions to said problems. After that, the voters can intelligently decide who they want as their president. The popularity of a presidential candidate should be based on his competence, experience and proven honesty. The rest is hogwash.