To the shores of Tripoli then the Santa Sede, Quirinale and Royal Madrid: A GMA blockbuster trip

No longer, for the nonce, the Queen of Taray, but the peripathetic epitome of diplomacy, La Presidenta has scheduled for herself a blockbuster itinerary this June.

First, GMA will fly off to Tripoli on June 23-24 on a state visit where she will be welcomed by Libya’s "Forever" Ruler, Col. Moammar Kaddafi. A month ago, Libya was scratched off the Terrorist List by the United States and Britain, following months of full cooperation and due penitence over the 1988 bombing of Pan American Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, which blew up Christmas homecoming passengers and crew.

The GMA visit will be the crowning achievement of the 12-year stint here of Libyan Ambassador Salem Adam, Dean by the way of Arab envoys in the Philippines. He actually studied in the University of the Philippines and speaks fluent Tagalog.

Next, La Gloria will fly to Fiumicino Airport in Rome to proceed to St. Peter’s to formally kiss the Holy Father’s ring, i.e. His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI (known in irreverent media circles as Papa Ratzi).

Her visit is being handled by our Ambassador to the Santa Sede (Holy See), Nida Vera. Following the pilgrimage to the Vatican, the President will visit the Quirinale, the capital of Italy in Rome – calling on the newly-elected Italian President Giorgio Napolitano, and Prime Minister Romano Prodi’s Center-Left Government. This trip is vital since Italy plays host to over 250,000 of our OFWs, the largest group of Filipino overseas workers in Europe (June 26-27).

One June 28, GMA will arrive in Madrid to be received by their Catholic Majesties, King Juan Carlos and Queen Sophia of Spain. The following day, June 29, La Presidenta will meet Spain’s Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. The surname of the Prime Minister is actually Rodriguez, but, I guess, since Rodriguezes are so thick on the ground in Spain – with due deference to our dear friend, Jose "Pepe" Rodriguez, who will be returning to Manila from Madrid as Spain’s Cultural Attache in the Instituto Cervantes.

Pepe, who is completing his stint as a senior officer of EFE, Spain’s international news agency, was, indeed, awarded the much-coveted Order of Sikatuna in Malacañang by President GMA in 2004.

The President will be accompanied, of course, by Foreign Affairs Secretary Bert Romulo, who, like La Gloria, speaks excellent Spanish, having received his Doctorate of Laws sobresaliente from the Universidad Central de Madrid. The two-day Spanish visit is being coordinated by our envoy to Spain, Ambassador Jose Delano "Lani" Bernardo.

* * *

In Rome, our friend Ambassador Philip Lhuillier will still be in situ to welcome La Presidenta. Philip has done a great job over the years in helping our OFWs there. Lhuillier, who hails from Cebu (the Holy Land for GMA), however, is leaving Rome shortly, since he has already been confirmed in the Commission on Appointments for his new post as our Ambassador to Buenos Aires (Argentina), in my view one of the most charming cities in South America if not the most endowed with savoir faire. Since Philip is fluent in Spanish and French, and speaks good Italian, he will be at home among the Porteños in Buenos Aires – particularly since the "mix" in Argentina, unique among Latin American countries (and not just for the seductive Tango and the late Evita Peron) is 40 percent Spanish and 40 percent Italian. It has, incidentally, the finest Opera House in the southern hemisphere, Teatro Colon.

Slated for Italy is the very accomplished Guimaras Governor Emily Lopez, wife of Albertito Lopez, whose confirmation has been pending too long in the Commission on Appointments. But she is being strongly supported by Speaker Joe de Venecia and his wife, Gina.

* * *

It can now be revealed that the next Thrilla (Chilla) in Manila, the dust-up between our Champ, Super Featherweight Manny Pacquiao and former Junior Featherweight world champion Oscar Larios of Mexico, on July 2 in the Araneta Coliseum, will be refereed by one of the boxing world’s greatest international referees, Bruce McTavish of Angeles (and New Zealand). Bruce came to the Philippines 38 years ago – and decided to stay for good, falling in love with and marrying Carmen Tayag (a daughter of our esteemed writer, the late Katoks Tayag whose classic and witty books include "The Sinners of Angeles" and "Farting is Such Sweet Sorrow.")

Mameng and Bruce have two grown-up daughters, as brainy and feisty as both of them.

McTavish, a true Angeleno, has happily sunk his roots here, running restaurants and hostelries, doing good, promoting rugby and other sports, and even maintaining a Bahay Bata program through which he is subsidizing 35 poor children through school.

However, he’s best renowned in world boxing circles as a tough and fair Referee, who’s constantly being tapped to supervise title bouts everywhere, from the Arctic Circle to Antartica, in Japan, the US West Coast, in New York. A couple of weeks ago, Bruce was invited to referee a very "sensitive" boxing bout in Thailand. I learned about it last Sunday (May 14) when I received, on my cellphone, a strange message from McTavish, saying: "Just a Message 2 say Hi! Just got out of prison in Bangkok!"

Ringing him back in surprise, I found out that Bruce had been asked by the Thais to referee a fight inside the main Bangkok penitentiary between a Thai defending champion – who was in the slammer for drugs – and a South Korean challenger from the outside.

The Thais obviously had put great store by the outcome of that match. A stream of VIPs arrived in the prison compound to view and monitor the match including a representative of Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and a representative from the King’s Palace, as well as the local Governor. Bruce was in a quandary. If the Thai contender didn’t win, he thought a bit worriedly, would he, the referee, be permitted to get out of prison that day – or get out of Bangkok itself with a whole skin?

Alas, he recalls now, the Korean clobbered the Thai "champ" and McTavish had to declare him da winnah. To his pleased surprise, instead of mobbing him and cursing him, and pushing him into the lockup and throwing away the key, the Thais grumbled a bit, but they bowed to his decision – and let him go.

"I wonder if I’ll allow myself to get into that sort of situation again," Bruce chuckled when he recounted the event. Better not cut it too close on such dicey matters, Brother Bruce, I’d say.

McTavish was chosen to referee the Pacquiao-Larios confrontation by Dr. Jose Soliman, president of World Boxing Council (WBC) and Chairman Erick Buhain of the Games and Amusement Board (GAB), so it’s settled.

I wonder how tickets will be sold to such a gala event, which is expected to be seen by about three million televiewers worldwide. Front and ringside seats in the Araneta Coliseum are being priced at $10,000 per seat. Sure, some big shots I know blow such amounts in a single tupada at the cockfights – but how will a large enough number of boxing aficionados come up with that kind of money? Oh well. You never know. Manny Pacquiao is a crowd-drawer, and Larios is no slouch either.

In any event, Manny – who gets $1 million for the fight – is in training in the United States, Larios will get $450,000.

May the best man win!

* * *

Did US Marines massacre 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha last November, including young children, grandmothers, helpless old men and women? Haditha is a town in Anbar province in Iraq. Of course they did!

Those Marines went amok – berserk, to use a Scandinavian term – when one of their number was killed by an IED roadside bomb in front of the cluster of homes they subsequently attacked. They just raged into those nearby houses and started shooting, clubbing and bayoneting. Just like we saw them do in Vietnam during the year of the My Lai massacre.

The Americans are frustrated and angry in Iraq, just as they were during the long years of grappling with the Viet Cong in South Vietnam. Men, women and kids in black pajamas turned out to be armed and shot at US patrols either from ambush, or explode plastique and claymore mines to shred unwary US soldiers. In retaliation, American grunts went bonkers, shooting or blasting away every villager in sight, no matter how innocent or helpless.

The US military, after denials fail, always vows to teach their young Gyrines, National Guardsmen, Infantry or Airborne "better manners" or the right "response" the next time. Never happens. In the fog of war, or the sandstorm of war, or battle rage, even worse than road rage, there are amoks in every unit, or the entire squad or platoon goes into a killing spree.

In Vietnam, US grunts even "fragged" their own lieutenants and sergeants when sore at their attempts at harsh discipline, or rebelling against their suicidal orders. (They used, in short, fragmentation grenades to blow up hated superiors, then blamed the deaths on the V.C. or attacking North Vietnamese). Many Americans, too, were zonked out on drugs like China White, sold to them at giveaway prices by bar girls in Honky Tonks, a V.C. demoralizing tactic. Sanamagan, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) smuggled drugs, too, on their own military aircraft, or an Air America – many of Air America’s top mechanics were Pinoys, just as many of our OFWs are gainfully, if perilously employed in US installations and camps in Iraq, Kuwait, and any war zone.

Sus, during the Philippine-American War of the early 1900s, which the Americans euphemistically called the Philippine "Insurrection," the Americans massacred Filipino civilians in Caloocan, in Samar, and dozens of provinces. War is hell. Our Revolutionary Army killed Yanks by the thousand too, in a four-year guerrilla conflict.

Iraq, to everyone’s sorrow, is a charnel house, with Americans, Brits, Iraqis being blasted, ambushed, and slain daily. Shia militia murder Sunnis and vice-versa. The Kurds wade into the battle, too. Muslims versus Muslims, and everyone else caught in the middle.

A guy like me, who’s been through five wars, been blown out of a helicopter, gone through ambushes and mortar assaults, still gets spooked by an explosion. At the Italian National Day celebration, a grand one, at the Coconut Palace which almost got rained out last Friday night, I almost jumped out of my Barong in a shudder of fright when suddenly celebratory fireworks began exploding – a colorful pyrotechnique show, I must say. You never get used to it, even those among us who "were soldiers once . . . and young."

You never get used to death, and its cloying smell, and the stench of cordite, whether on the bloody streets of Saigon during the Tet, or Da Nang, or the post-GESTAPU massacre in Jakarta, Yogjakarta, Semarang, Solo – or Bandung.

Or the Killing Fields of the Philippines today.

* * *

THE ROVING EYE . . . Why is Bureau of Internal Revenue Commissioner Jojo Buñag getting "sneak attacked" for alleged "failure", when in truth the BIR has done a good job of revenue collection? Because somebody powerful wants his job. A top suspect is the husband of a well-known woman legislator who himself is a notorious gambler at the cockfights. If this bozo, through his wife’s influence and GMA’s transactional nature, gets to be BIR Chief, it’s like Count Dracula being put in charge of the Blood Bank. He’ll suck everybody dry . . . The move in Congress to legislate an across-the-board minimum wage increase will kill business, and panic investment to minus zero. You don’t appease "labor" by OPM – Other People’s Money, meaning our money. Congressmen and senators love to give perks to the working class because it’s not coming from their own pockets. They have no class themselves, and don’t work. Why don’t they do this nation a real favor instead by abolishing their own P7.1 billion "pork barrel"? Did you know that no solon ever constructed a school house out of his or her pork barrel? Yet they deliver all those fine speeches about "education" – incidentally to an almost empty House. Did we hear right? Are only 20 Congressmen faithfully attending sessions, while the rest are absent most of the time? If there were a "law" automatically depriving a legislator of "pork barrel" completely after, say, 20 days of absence or AWOL, we’d have 100 percent attendance. I’m all for stripping habitually absent legislators of salaries and privileges, too. How about it? Let’s get down to specifics. A daily roll call of congressmen and senators must be published by the government so the people can know who are wasting their tax money and who are not on the job. Frankly, I’d offer to publish the names of the absent solons daily in The STAR, but I’d quickly run out of newsprint and go bankrupt if I did – the daily list of absentees would be too long.