Spy vs spy

This is one distinction Filipino-Americans don’t need. The first spying case at the White House in modern history has been uncovered, and guess who’s the accused culprit?

A report said Filipino-Americans, especially those working for the US government, are bracing for the fallout from the foolishness of some of our politicians and their lackeys in the United States.

And all for what? As deposed President Joseph Estrada and other opposition figures have been saying, the reports forwarded to them by accused spies Leandro Aragoncillo and Michael Ray Aquino were all about the Philippines and contained nothing earth-shaking. The information could be found in Manila newspapers, they said.

Apparently the two men’s handlers simply wanted bragging rights; they liked letting on, with a cute wink, that they had a mole in the Federal Bureau of Investigation (or in the CIA, as Erap boasted, mixing his agencies).

For US prosecutors, of course, the nature of the reports is beside the point. What they are concerned about — and what they want to prevent by apprehending and punishing the culprits — is the theft of classified information from US government files. A nation at war cannot afford such a serious breach of security.

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The silliest comment about this affair comes from some confused politicians who have been trying to turn the tables on the Americans by accusing their diplomats of spying on the Philippines. Proof, they said, are those reports allegedly from the US Embassy in Manila and purloined by Aragoncillo.

All diplomats posted overseas, including our own, are supposed to file regular reports about the host country. Those who don’t aren’t doing their jobs and are simply attending too many cocktails. These reports are put together from news reports and the diplomats’ personal contacts with individuals and groups from both the administration and opposition. Diplomats gather different views on the same subject and make their own assessments.

Under our security arrangement with the US, the two countries share intelligence. Bilateral security cooperation led to the neutralization of top Abu Sayyaf commanders.

Of course Americans conduct spying activities all the time in different parts of the globe. But the kind of spying they use to track down al-Qaeda operatives overseas, or the kind of spying allegedly employed by Aragoncillo using his security clearance, is not needed by US diplomats here to assess the political situation. They need not work too hard to dig up information; the information comes to them.

As one top diplomat posted in Manila during one of the most turbulent periods here said, not a month passed without some person or group pitching a coup, junta or some other extraconstitutional anti-government activity to US officials. In Manila’s diplomatic community, this problem is unique to the Americans. Their problem is information overload, sifting the chaff from the grain. No need to break into Philippine government computers for them.

The Philippine press has a similar predicament. One foreign journalist observed that in other countries, the problem is access to news sources. In this country, he said, the problem is that everyone wants to go to the press with a story or idea to sell.

Once the garbage has been discarded, the Americans prepare their assessments and send out cables to the relevant government agencies in the United States.

Only federal prosecutors know what information Aragoncillo is accused of stealing from the files of the FBI and Vice President Dick Cheney. But clueless Philippine politicians have bragged about receiving information from Aragoncillo and Aquino. The indications are that they wanted the accused spies to troll for signs of withdrawal of American support for the Arroyo administration, and for hints of US support for any member of the Philippine opposition.

They should have simply asked US diplomats here for an opinion. Now their spies in the US are in deep manure and the conspiracy charges could reach all the way to Manila.

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It has belatedly dawned on these politicians that their bragging about receiving information from Aquino and Aragoncillo merely buried the two men deeper.

After these politicians nearly fell all over themselves announcing that they had received information from the duo, one flummoxed diplomat expressed his confusion to me.

Spying, the diplomat said, is a serious felony in the US. The spying pair could get up to 15 years behind bars, at the end of which they are bound to be sent back to the Philippines, handcuffed to their plane seats. Aragoncillo, a naturalized US citizen, could be stripped of his citizenship.

Obviously the pair worked for someone in the Philippines. Aquino is a nursing graduate (how did he manage that on an expired tourist visa?) who can’t risk returning to Manila; Aragoncillo has foolishly blown a good job with the FBI. What use do they have for damaging information about the Arroyo administration, or for fake or embellished American endorsements of Philippine opposition leaders?

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The United States does spy on foreign governments. It has the technological know-how and the political will and when there is a need, it puts its spooks to work. We saw a lot of this during the cold war, even in the Philippines, where some Filipinos were on the payroll of Uncle Sam and passed information about everything from politics to security and the local communist movement.

The Americans not only spy on foreign governments; they even kidnap heads of state if they think it is in their national interest. Think Manuel Noriega of Panama. They not only kidnap heads of state; they attack sovereign nations and bring down regimes.

Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, however, is no Manuel Noriega or Saddam Hussein. She is a friend of the Americans and is trying to regain the full trust of the Bush White House as a staunch ally in the war on terror.

Whatever fake or "massaged" US assessment reports people like Vice President Noli de Castro are reacting to, the Americans are not plotting to bring down the Arroyo administration. At the height of the latest political crisis, their message was that they would not support any coup, junta, martial law, people power or any extraconstitutional mode of regime change.

Darryl Johnson managed to stay above the fray in his two months in Manila, and we’ll likely see more of the same when he is replaced this week as chargé d’affaires by Paul Jones.

The Americans look determined to just stay neutral, maintaining their support for the duly constituted government, which happens to be headed by Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Just ask them about it; no need to enlist a spy in the FBI.