In America, the storm troopers are better-uniformed

NEW YORK CITY -- The worst nightmare of a man in uniform tasked with a might-makes-right mission is to find a news photographer at the scene of the action, snapping away to record the wild event.

That photo of a tough, helmeted and masked US marshal -- his automatic weapon pointed at the Cuban-American holding six-year-old Elián González, while a terrified Elián looks at this strange paratrooper from Mars -- has gone on American and worldwide television a zillion times.

You can be sure the Associated Press lensman who was lucky to be in the home of Elián's besieged Cuban-American relatives when the jackbooted US marshals barged in, splintered the door, and the "unidentified" marshal yelled at the cowering fisherman carrying Elián (the same good Samaritan who had rescued the boy months earlier from the Florida straits) will get all sorts of photography awards and bonuses. But no thanks from Bill Clinton and Attorney-General Janet Reno who ordered the "raid" so that the boy, Elián, could be "reunited" kuno with his Cuban father, Juan Miguel González, who had been sent over by Cuba's Lider Maximo (no relation to me) Fidel Castro to fetch his son -- wow! Such a propaganda boondoggle for everyone concerned!

What was the helmeted and visored US marshal, appearing so much like a Hitler brownshirt, yelling when he poked that submachinegun forward and grabbed for Elián? Who cares? He might just as well have been saying: "Come out and I'll give you ice cream," or "Daddy wants you, son, and I'm your designated yaya (nanny) . . ." The ferocious mien on the marshal, the stricken look on the six-year-old's face, the pointed weapon, speaks volumes. Even if Elián's anti-Castro Miami relatives had been keeping Elián in their home in "Little Cuba", Miami, merely to irritate the Caribbean dictator, it's clear that the biggest casualty of the mishandled affair may be Democratic Party "Presidential candidate" Al Gore.

Bill Clinton and Janet Reno have been arguing on television that they had no recourse but to send in the US marshals so "the law" could be upheld and the poor kid "reunited" with his father at Andrews Air Force base. However, candidate Gore, Mr. Clinton's vice president, may get the brunt of Cuban-American -- even Hispanic -- anger and indignation (Latin-Americans have something like 23 million votes in the coming November elections).

Quick to jump into the situation, an indignant Florida Governor Jeb Bush (Republican, of course) roundly assailed the storm-trooper "tactics" and asserted it was wrong for the Clinton administration to have treated the case of the relatives "keeping" the boy and preventing him from being sent back to Communist Cuba as a "hostage situation." Then the governor launched into a tirade against the Clinton administration for its high-handed move. Governor Bush, it must be added, is the brother of Republican Party bet, Texas Governor George W. Bush. The "Elián case" was heaven sent for the Republicans. Can it be translated into votes this November? Abangan.

The fact is that, among even those who don't care a fiddle or a fig about the six-year-old kid and the overblown media "feeding frenzy" which has engulfed his story since the boy was plucked out of the Atlantic by two fishermen (clinging to a black, inflated tire inner tube) last November 25, the idea of armed men, helmeted and visored, breaking into your home is repugnant. What if they were officers of "the law"? Such scenarios were supposed to take place in Dictator Fidel Castro's Cuba, not in the United States of America, the Land of the Free and the Flag-burners.

As for little Elián, it's equally clear that he has always been just a pawn in the unending battle between the anti-Castro Cuban "exiles" in America (whose headquarters state is Florida) and the Castro regime just 90 miles away. Yet, it's known to all that Elián's mother, Elizabeth Brotons, and her boyfriend, Lazaro Munero, had drowned in that failed escape attempt in which they were taking Elián to America. Of the 14 persons who had taken off in a small cockleshell of a crudely-made boat from the town of Cardenas, Cuba, 11 drowned in a storm so maddeningly close to the US coastline -- and only three, including Elián and 33-year old Nivaldo Fernandez and his 22-year-old girlfriend Arianne Horta, survived.

Will Elián now be "forced" to return to Cuba? Months of court battles, probably, still lie ahead. At six, he's too young to decide for himself one way or the other. But would any red-blooded boy, naturally, if compelled to choose between the Land of Toys-R-Us, Disneyworld, McDonald's, and the more spartan precincts of La Habana, opt for "Patria o muerte, venceremos"? I think not. After all, even papa Juan Miguel has long-ago remarried and has an eight-month old half-brother to Elián with his new wife. He surely "loves" Elián, and perhaps even wants him "back", but I suspect that, if Juan Miguel had his druthers (and didn't have mama and other relatives held "hostage", too, in Cuba) he'd defect, too.

Ay, ay, ay: What a cruel world, made even more cruel by the spotlight of media!

Elián, alas, is not just a puzzled boy. He's a photo opportunity!

There's a feeling of unreality in viewing the Philippines from faraway New York City.

I can't comment, for instance, on our Philippine Army soldiers going into the bush to try to rescue the remaining 29 hostages in the hands of the fanatical Moro "Abu Sayyaf" (Were two prisoners, as claimed by the bandits, really beheaded?). As somebody commented when we were covering the Viet Nam War, "The civilian far from the danger zone is usually much more ferocious than the soldier in the frontlines." So, I won't attempt to be that sort of armchair general.

However, what else can we do? Keep our military twiddling their thumbs while those foreign-funded Islamic yahoos rampage and murder at will? As an old soldier myself, thankfully retired, I don't envy our Army troopers and Marines their tough and dangerous assignment. But that's what they were trained and "signed up" to do -- defend our people and our Republic. Otherwise, they should have chosen a less demanding profession, like congressman. Or columnist and opinion dispenser. (Or calumnist, as some are on their computers and word-processors).

It's a cold and overcast Easter Sunday morning as I write. (Outside, it's 44 degrees Fahrenheit). The rains threatened to come down and rain on our parade -- meaning the traditional Easter Parade.

Three blocks down the street, on Fifth avenue, the Easter sunrise Mass will soon start at St. Patrick's cathedral. Sunday sunrise in New York, as you already know, is Sunday night in Manila, half a world away.

Last Good Friday (April 21), the Liturgy of The Lord's Passion was presided over by His Eminence, Julian Cardinal O'Connor, Archbishop of New York. The Most Rev. William J. McCormack was the celebrant of the services and "homilist." All those bright Irish names reminded me of my school days here, at Fordham University uptown in the Bronx (now known as "No Man's Land" and the graveyard of the Vanities).

In a way, the Big Apple is my hometown, but youth is a country that can never be revisited. And yet, as I walk about, who but a returning New Yorker can appreciate the scent of garbage and excrement (in that melting pot where nothing really melts) as part of the kingdom of fond memory? Or the traffic pollution and gridlock which grows worse and worse -- putting Metro Manila, during morning and after rush-hours at the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, to shame? Yet, New York sparkles. It scintillates. It reeks of life and excitement. It throbs with power.

It's not Washington, DC with its marbled monuments and surreal political backstabbing and media arrogance that is the "capital of the world," but New York -- where the cab drivers are turbanned Sikhs or merely sick. Do you think they drive impolitely in Manila? Try NYC.

I love it.

In his Good Friday homily, the Most Rev. McCormack asked the packed congregation in St. Pat's to "pray for the Jewish people" who, he said, were the first to hear Jesus and the Word of God. It was not lost on him, possibly (forgive the latent cynicism) that there are six million Jewish people in New York, concurrently celebrating their Feast of the Passover -- the theme, if you'll recall, of Our Lord's Last Supper.

The prayers were fervent. The crowd responded in full voice. The Choir, as always, was inspired and inspiring.

The well-suited ushers were everywhere, keeping us pious peasants in the pews well in line. There was sanctity in the air (St. Pat's brings out the best in everyone). There is an interesting difference in America's Catholic celebration of Easter. After the services commemorating Christ's passion and death, they dispense Holy Communion. The priests who descended to the front aisles with their ciboriums to dispense the Host to the churchgoers were multinational -- some were Indians, others African -- not African-Americans -- one, I could swear, was a Filipino. There were nuns galore. Later, they brought up the Holy Cross, and everybody shuffled forward to kiss it. To speed matters along, there were priests in surplices with a dozen smaller crosses, posted at each aisle -- a sort of assembly-line religious efficiency.

THE ROVING EYE . . . When we got into our hotel room in The Peninsula Hotel (on Fifth avenue, 55th st.) -- arriving from JFK airport after a long but comfortable flight across the Pacific on Cathay Pacific (I paid for my ticket, so this is not a commercial plug, but one made in appreciation -- I got to see all the latest Hong Kong-Chinese action and romantic movies, with subtitles enroute, which is a fillip you get on CX flights), the in-room television was switched to CNN. To our horror, CNN was announcing that a Davao-bound plane, an ill-fated Boeing 737-200, with 131 on board, had crashed. For three hours, CNN kept on saying it was a "Philippine Airlines" plane, until its newscasters realized that "Air Philippines" was a different airline from PAL. We can only grieve for those who lost their lives and pray for their stricken relatives. When we got the list of names, it was even more saddening. Filipinos in the US get their news quickly by accessing The Philippine STAR on the Internet. We're on the Website and get 1.8 million -- yes, one million eight hundred thousand "hits" daily from the USA . . . It has been cold and rainy the past two days here. We're preparing to leave for Boston for the Executive Board meeting and to attend the 50th World Congress of the International Press Institute (IPI). Happy Easter!