Vigilance vs. terror everybody's business

This is the age of terrorism. Even without specific threats, prudence dictates that nations and peoples take the possibility of terrorist attacks seriously and must be on guard at all times.

In connection with the feast of the Black Nazarene last Monday, no less than President Aquino went public with a warning against the possibility of a terrorist attack on the procession marking the feast.

Was it necessary for the president to issue the warning himself? As I said, it is now the responsibility of everyone to guard against such threats. If Aquino felt the situation required his direct participation, why not?

Of course some found it unnecessary for the president to issue the warning directly. And frankly I agree that he should have coursed the warning through the appropriate security agencies and his communications team.

But if it was any error at all to issue the warning himself, I would rather that we err on the side of caution. Terrorism observes no rules and no norms. So, to me, it is something to which we should all respond in kind.

As a security issue, I find nothing wrong in anyone — from president on down to the least of our citizens to issue an alarm if there is a credible basis to do so. As I said, better to err on the side of caution than be sorry in not giving terrorism the seriousness it deserves.

Terrorists are a treacherous people. Their acts are defined by madness. There is simply no conventional way to approach the problem because we do not deal with normal people here. The terrorists are the advance army of the Devil.

If Aquino erred with his public warning, certainly the error must lie outside the context of the thing warned against. Perhaps it was politically opportunistic of him to employ a little publicity stunt like grabbing a share of the limelight with the Black Nazarene.

But the actual cost of simply folding one’s arms is too great that I would rather have the president grab the headlines for all he cares so long as the message of caution reaches the broadest audience as possible.

Look, everybody was too focused on the fiesta that not even the national police chief nor the secretary of defense would have succeeded in drawing public attention toward the possibility of a terror attack.

So if it had to take Aquino to do it himself, then so be it. Better have him grab his share of television airtime than seeing the same airtime devoted to scenes of carnage and mayhem.

Of course I would not go so far as to credit the president with having averted a terror attack. As we all know, no one, not even America, can thwart a terrorist attack. But it helps to be snatched every once in a while from the clutches of terrorisms greatest ally — complacency.

 Besides, I think Aquino had more to lose either way by taking a direct hand than if he didn’t. If an attacked happened, his warning would not have mattered and he would still have taken the flak. Look, no attack happened, and he is still getting skinned.

The bottomline here is that we should all always heed any warning, regardless of whether it is the president issuing the warning or not. Terror can come from anywhere anytime, so why should we be damn so picky about who issues the warning and how?