Losing focus

Mindanao may turn into the next Afghanistan? Look no further; even Metro Manila could be well on its way.

This year’s Valentine’s Day celebrations in the nation’s premier region were marred by a deadly bombing in the heart of Makati. The Abu Sayyaf commanders who were killed during the Bicutan jail siege were reportedly plotting a wave of bombings from Metro Manila to Mindanao if they had succeeded in escaping.

Yesterday a press conference at the Islamic Center in Manila by a Muslim group denouncing a US warning about an "Afghanistan situation" was disrupted by three men who reportedly fired Armalite rifles and caliber .45 handguns into the air.

Reports said the three armed men arrived with the husband of the barangay captain, stopped the press conference inside the mosque and shooed away the crew of three television stations.

Why were those men toting Armalites? They aren’t cops; Manila policemen are now looking for them. Are they bodyguards of the barangay captain? Are barangay captains entitled to heavily armed bodyguards? Do Philippine laws apply at the Islamic Center?

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Now that the government has let off steam by filing a diplomatic protest over statements made by the number two man at the US embassy, it should take a closer look at the terrorist problem.

Curiously, there was muted reaction from security officials about the warning from Chargé d’Affaires Joseph Mussomeli. That’s probably because the officials recognized that they themselves were the sources of the information cited by Mussomeli in issuing his warning. Data sharing is part of the "intelligence fusion" between the two countries.

And the intel reports point to increasing activities of Islamist militants not just in Mindanao but even in Metro Manila.

Information extracted from terror suspects captured in recent months point to alarming developments. Among them:

Terrorist training continues in the hinterlands of Mindanao, with help from certain elements of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. The trainers are mostly Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) militants from Indonesia, who continue to enter the country through the porous borders in Mindanao. Lessons in explosives are becoming more sophisticated, as the trainers are tech-savvy. The Abu Sayyaf has teamed up with JI and some MILF members, and Sayyaf chieftain Khadaffy Janjalani is alive and well, as US authorities have suspected all along and as confirmed by his de facto spokesperson recently. And, as the events that led to the Valentine’s Day bombings showed, there are now terrorist "sleeper cells" in our midst, and they are being activated one by one.

The violence in Mindanao continues. Yesterday a police colonel and his two aides were killed in an ambush by suspected Islamic militants in Lanao.

A report yesterday said terrorists appear to be planning a major attack every six months. That was the chief of the Philippine National Police talking.

We should be worried. Everyone should be worried. Why should the Americans not worry?

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Joseph Mussomeli is worried, and he said so during a recent interview with Australian television. The chargé warned that if authorities got distracted from the war on terror, Mindanao could turn into an "Afghanistan situation" and a "mecca" for terrorists.

Everyone and his mother immediately pounced on Mussomeli the other day, with the usual clowns and leftists demanding that he be declared persona non grata or PNG. Yesterday he was summoned by the Department of Foreign Affairs and handed a diplomatic protest.

Only security officials kept their mouths shut.

How did sweet, charming Joe Mussomeli end up being so hated by the government?

Mussomeli has in fact been packing his bags over the past few weeks, but not because he foresaw a PNG tag. He has been given a bigger assignment and will assume his new post shortly in another country. Formal announcement is expected soon.

"I’m not really criticizing your government or mine," he told me yesterday. "I’m just saying we haven’t won the war."

He was unapologetic about his remarks to Australian TV, telling everyone to look carefully at the transcript posted on the embassy website to put everything in context. But of course few of the critics who pounced on him had read the transcript, much less catch the nuances and caveats in his statements.

Mussomeli emphasized that the Philippine government is "working hard to make the situation better" within its limited resources. He did not disagree with Malacañang’s pronouncement that the nation was making progress in the war on terror. But "we all need to do more… we all know that more needs to be done," he said, adding that whatever negative observations he made about the situation in the Philippines was "just generic criticism."

Even President Arroyo acknowledged this yesterday. After citing praise from US President George W. Bush for Philippine successes in the war on terror, she conceded, "There are many things we still have to do."

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For starters, lawmakers who have jumped on Mussomeli may want to dust off anti-terrorism measures that have been languishing in Congress. Now that a survey by respected pollster Social Weather Stations has shown public support for the national ID system as a tool against terrorism, politicians should do their job and pass the necessary legislation.

There are terrorists to catch, porous borders to seal off from troublemakers, terrorist training camps to be dismantled.

Washington is willing to help in all facets of the war on terror – not just through military aid but also by funding programs to improve literacy and ease poverty, Mussomeli emphasized. The US Agency for International Development is funneling 60 percent of its funds for the Philippines to Mindanao.

His greatest worry is that the two countries would lose focus on Mindanao, as they did in the 1990s when both the Abu Sayyaf and the MILF gained strength.

Mussomeli grins when he is told to keep his big mouth shut. Unlike Catholic cardinals, American diplomats are not known for zipping their mouths on almost any topic. And as events since Sept. 11, 2001 have shown, the US government obviously does not think the war on terror is any country’s internal affair.

If Mussomeli gets expelled from Manila for speaking up about the war on terror, he may even wear his PNG like a red badge of courage. So don’t give him the honor, folks.

Malacañang’s advice is to simply ignore Mussomeli. Fine. But the government cannot afford to keep ignoring such warnings, hyperbole and all.