US Embassy closes

The Christmas season in the Philippines starts on December 16 with the novenary Masses known as Simbang Gabi. Now on the first week of December, the American Embassy has announced that the US Embassy will close down and suspend all its public services operation after receiving "plausible" threat information. As a result, all of Metro Manila is under full alert.

The American Embassy is a difficult place to secure for the simple reason that it can be penetrated by land, air and the Manila Bay. To make matters worse, the closure of the Embassy coincided with the unannounced arrival of the US Director for National Intelligence John Negroponte. US Press Attache Matthew Lussenhop said that the credible threat information they had received had no bearing on the arrival of Negroponte, but it is certainly a very bad coincidence. Negroponte was the American Ambassador to the Philippines from 1993 to 1996 and he is supposed to be here to hold meetings with his Philippine counterparts on RP-US efforts to combat international terrorism. And now on his arrival, the Americans have had to close the Embassy because of plausible terrorist threats. The closure of the American Embassy is undoubtedly a victory, for the terrorist and the question now is when will the Americans think that it will be safe to reopen its Manila Embassy. If the American Embassy is not safe in Manila, are the other embassies safe?

For sometime now, the country has received information that terrorists were planning to launch a major attack in Metro Manila. Could that have been what is now the feared attack on the American Embassy or another attack on what many people fear may be directed on Metro Manila’s commercial center which is Makati?

The best policy for all to adopt is to be alert. The Manila Hotel, for instance, is very close to the American Embassy. They should be on high alert because a terrorist attack may start there only to deviate police attention to the real target which will be the American Embassy.

The good thing is that our National Police is on high alert and they have proven that in the past, they were able to meet the challenges that terrorists posed. But what we must all do is to be careful during this coming Christmas season for undoubtedly one of the major goals of the terrorists is to turn Christmas into Crisismas. The Christmas spirit must prevail. But we should all be aware of the terrorists’ threat not only in the US Embassy but in all crowded places.