Terror alert unheeded

In the aftermath of Tuesday’s bombing of a bus along Edsa in Makati, in which several people were killed or injured, three theories practically leapt out: The bombing was a terrorist act, or the opening salvo of fresh destabilization attempts, or the handiwork of extortionists.

Given these three plausible choices, President Noynoy Aquino picked the former. He did not even mention extortionists but he did say there was little or no reason to suspect another destabilization. In all likelihood, terrorists were behind the bombing, he said.

This is, of course, the same President Aquino who, not very long ago, bristled over the terror alerts raised by a number of countries against the Philippines. These countries, the US, UK, and Australia among them, warned their nationals against travel to this country.

To catch the leader of a nation in such a contradiction is not very reassuring. In fact, it underscores the very reason why the Philippines seems to stumble from one mistake to another, ensuring that whatever progress we might make, it will always be slower than our neighbors.

Had Noynoy not take umbrage at the suggestion that the Philippines is in the crosshairs of another terrorist attack, he could have made clear sense out of the good intentions behind the warnings and acted swiftly and accordingly.

 But to Noynoy at the time, the terror alerts were a disruption of his extended honeymoon. The issue of terror is serious stuff and he was not about ready to get all that serious yet. More importantly, he thought the alerts besmirched the country, and by extension its leader.

So Noynoy pooh-poohed the alerts. Taking the hint, the rest of the country did not take the alerts seriously. No serious security precautions were undertaken. National life proceeded along merrily on its way.

Then the bomb exploded on the bus on Edsa in Makati. And suddenly Noynoy felt inclined to consider it the handiwork of terror. But wasn’t that precisely what the earlier alerts were for? Does it still matter if the president got the answer right when it is apparently too late?

True, even if Noynoy already put his finger on terror, that is still just a theory being worked on by investigators, no different from the other theories concerning destabilization or extortion. The truth may still swing a different way. It may not be terror after all.

But that is not the point. The point is that the world we live in today is a vastly more different and dangerous world. Terrorism has become as much a reality as the sun coming at the beginning of each, although in a much more uncomfortable and disconcerting way.

Terrorism has become so real that it is the height of irresponsibility for the leader of a nation to take terror alerts lightly. It is precisely this failure to take terror alerts more seriously that terrorists look for and take advantage of, with devastating results.

 The bomb that ripped through that bus on Edsa in Makati may have killed five people and injured more than a dozen (as of this writing), but it was still a relatively small bomb compared to the kind we often see detonated with more tragic consequences in other countries.

 But it could just be a test, the beginning of something bigger, in the same manner that the 9/11 attacks in the United States had its inception and dry run in the Philippines when Ramzi Yousef exploded a bomb on a plane from Manila to Tokyo with a stopover in Cebu.

 It is not as if terror is something so remotely possible as far as the Philippines is concerned. In December 2000, a bomb ripped through the LRT in Manila in the so-called Rizal Day Bombing. In 2004, the Superferry 14 was bombed and sunk, resulting in the deaths of 116 people.

In other words, Noynoy cannot remain unconcerned and impervious to terror alerts, regardless of whether or not they may interrupt his life’s precious quiet moments. Certainly he does not want to wake up one day full of regret over something he could have prevented.