No chicken run - BY THE WAY by Max V. Soliven

In the confusion and near-panic which followed Treacherous Saturday’s "bombing" atrocities, a radio-TV news reporter – calling in to her studio from SM Megamall Makati where everybody seemed to be milling about in the wake of a "called-in" bomb scare – said it all. She told her news anchor: "Basically, over here, we’re all running around like chickens with our heads cut off."

In short, yesterday, as it was last Saturday, nobody has a clue. It’s still mostly guesswork, speculation, rumor and conjecture.

On the other hand, while still "scared", most people yesterday began picking up the interrupted rhythm of their lives. The supermarkets and malls from where customers had vanished Saturday afternoon, had last-minute shoppers thronging into them. The "bomb" saboteurs, we can only calculate, had caused stores and shops hundreds of millions of pesos in lost sales Saturday afternoon and evening. "Homegoing" plans for the thousands were disrupted when, after that bus exploded in Cubao horrifyingly, witnesses told me, shreds of flesh, bone, human parts and bucketfulls of blood were splattered all over the scene. Commuters were too afraid to risk themselves on buses or the Light Rail Transit’s trains. But the human spirit, despite all the physical and psychological scars inflicted on those in the areas of carnage, heals quickly. Yesterday things, slowly but steadily, began to return to normal. The Filipino will recover and regain equanimity – until the next bomb attack or terrorist assault. Nobody can predict the timing of the "next" one, which is what makes every situation crafted by terrorist conspirators so terrifying: The anticipation of the unknown.

* * *

Once again, forgive me for drawing on personal experience, but I can’t think of any other way to drive a point home in this period of uncertainty: In time, if terrorist activities persist, "threatened" populations learn to adjust.

Everybody, no matter how often he or she faces danger, will never be able to say: "I’m used to it. I’m not afraid." Even among veterans of battle and tested warriors, fear is ever-present. This is precisely what gives bravery, courage, and self-sacrifice their mark of valor, and gave rise to that phrase of honor and praise appended to every commendation and medal – performance and fortitude "above and beyond the call of duty." Take the word of anyone who has ever been in the midst of combat and danger not once but several times: You never shrug off fear, but you learn to cope with it.

That’s what my dear friend, Zamboanga City’s plucky and witty Mayor, Cesar C. Climaco, a man so much admired, used to say to me everytime I told him of the latest "death threat" received by yours truly. "Well, Max," Cesar would laugh. "Do you want to live forever?" (Actually, I do, but I would join him in a chuckle and agree with Cesar that nobody can expect to live forever.)

I wish we had a man like Climaco today. He was, like his buddy, the late Manila Mayor Arsenio Lacson, an irrepressible individual with a courageous tongue. He would lash out verbally at the corrupt, and at hypocrites as well. Nobody was safe from his quick mind and his typically acerbic comments, not even himself. When he ran for Senator and lost, he grinned and shrugged off reports that he had been cheated. When he ran for another big post (governor? I’m not sure now) and lost a second time, he quipped: "The first time I lost, I thought it was accidental. Now, this second time around, I’m afraid it has become habitual."

He could never lose, however, when he ran for mayor of Zamboanga City. The Zamboangeños loved him. When martial law was declared in September 1972, Climaco dared Marcos and the military to arrest him. He let his hair grow, finally fixing it into a scraggly pony-tail, vowing publicly never to get a hair-cut until the nation regained its freedom from the Marcos dictatorship and martial law. He put up a big public billboard in the plaza, on which he would tack on the numbers of persons killed, kidnapped, "salvaged", etc., so the public would be constantly reminded of the atrocities permitted or committed by those in power.

He was an energetic, tireless, hands-on Mayor. He would beat the firemen, frequently, to every fire or be at every crime scene, roaring around town on his motorbike. One night, as he was returning from a fire scene, Climaco – astride his motorbike – was approached by a man who fired pointblank at him, shooting him dead. The assassin got away. (The suspicion was that an army officer, whom Climaco had been criticizing for his "rackets", had hired the killer.)

Thus brave Mayor Cesar Climaco’s life was snuffed out. But, contrary to his own prediction, he lives forever – in our hearts.

* * *

Secretary Robert Aventajado rang me up yesterday to vehemently deny what he called the "malicious rumors" going around that he and some of his alleged assets from the Abu Sayyaf had been behind the five bombings in Metro Manila. "This is disgusting!" Robert (not Robot) fumed. "Some people are trying to discredit and destroy me!"

The rumor had spread in the coffee shops and burger joints (I can testify) that Robert A. and some of his "Abu friends" had been involved in a plot to destabilize the situation so as to downgrade the impeachment scandals and give the administration kuno the excuse to impose martial law. To be specific, Aventajado denied to me yesterday that the two persons "alleged" to be involved with him were henchmen of his. One of the names which had been mentioned was "Manny Oineza" and the other, a Chinese, said to be "Leo Ong." Aventajado said that indeed, he believed Manny Oineza may have certain connections with the Abu Sayyaf but Oineza didn’t work for him. Aventajado said that in negotiating for the release by the Abus of the 21 hostages seized from Sipadan island (Malaysia) on April 23 last year, he had dealt with all sorts of people, from Moro rebels to middlemen. He said that his only link to Oineza was the fact that he had recruited Oineza as one of his initial "negotiators" to feel out the Abu kidnappers with regard to their captives. "After that first round of negotiations failed," Aventajado averred, "I didn’t use Oineza any longer." As for this so-called "Leo Ong", he added, he didn’t know anyone by that name.

In any event, Aventajado said, the last time he had talked to Oineza was some two weeks ago when Oineza had come to see him to show him a "video" footage of American hostage Jeffrey Schilling who’s still in the hands of the Abu Sayyaf. Manny Oineza, whom Aventajado described as a former security man of the Enriles ("not mine") had informed him that two Abu rebels had come to Manila to "sell" that video clip of Schilling to the U.S. Embassy – through him.

"What I recall," Aventajado maintained, "was that the short sequence depicted Schilling chained to a tree, appealing to the American government to save him by agreeing to the Abu’s terms." (What terms, Aventajado asserted, he himself didn’t know). Instead of allowing the Abus to sell the video to the Americans, Aventajado narrated, he had personally contacted US Consul-General John Caulfield (the individual he knew best among the local US officials) and when several US agents went to his office, enabled them to make a "copy" gratis of the Abu Sayyaf video.

Subsequently, the PNP under General Romulo Sales apprehended the two Abu Sayyaf cadres supposed to be peddling the "Schilling" video. That’s what Aventajado recounted to me.

He repeated: "I had nothing to do with those bombings." He declared that he didn’t even think the Abus were behind them, but "probably the Communists and the New People’s Army." Despite what I had written about the international terrorist Ramzi Yousef having trained Abu cadres in bomb-making and detonation, Aventajado persisted in saying he didn’t think the Abu Sayyaf had enough "expertise."

So there. I’ve quoted his statement.

* * *

Washington, DC is sending two forensic experts (due to arrive today) to assist the police and our armed forces intelligence operatives in identifying and tracking down the perpetrators of last Saturday’s bomb outrages.

US intelligence, my sources say, is very much in the picture – strongly suspecting the bombings are tied in with their pet peeve, Saudi billionaire and terrorist-financier Osama bin Laden. On the other hand, whether the Bin-Laden "funded" Abu Sayyaf or Communist terrorists are responsible, insiders tell me, the Americans have upped the ante.

The usual "nationalist" quarters will, in knee-jerk fashion, decry US meddling here. Alas, every Tom, Dick and Humperdink, whether Yankee, European, Chinese Taiwanese, Arab, Pakistani, Afghan, Malaysian or Indonesian, meddle here anyway. We’re an "open city" to everybody with enough gall or cash to gain entry.

Remember Orson Welles’s classic movie about Harry Lime, The Third Man? If Vienna was the playground for spies and doublecrossers, We’re worse than that in Manila today: we’re Vienna sausage.

Well. Happy New Year! Remember the Cantonese curse: "May you live in interesting times"? This will be a verry interesting year.