VIENNA – Before leaving for this lovely Austrian capital, I left instructions at the office about some of my finances.
This was in case I ran into a terrorist attack or a building fire in this city, or my plane crashed during the nearly daylong flight with a stopover in Istanbul.
Our forces are still battling Maute terrorists in devastated Marawi, and the Philippines has been ranked as the 11th most dangerous country for tourists. The ranking was drawn up by the World Economic Forum (WEF) before the Marawi siege and the bizarre attack on Resorts World Manila by a gambling addict, which claimed 38 lives including several foreign casino patrons.
This is a dangerous country, certainly, but which country isn’t in the age of the Islamic State?
With governments tightening security against conventional weapons, IS-inspired terrorists have turned to ordinary items such as knives and vans for killing. One day they might weaponize even pencils and umbrellas, like in action movies.
Because the impact is more dramatic, the Islamic State has been staging attacks on Western capitals, with tourist spots as favored targets.
After events in recent months, can the WEF really consider London or Paris or Brussels safer for tourists than Manila? Yesterday London was again shaken by a death and several injuries after a van ploughed into worshippers near a mosque, with authorities saying it looked like a terrorist attack.
Austria has not seen such attacks so far, but it’s always better to be prepared for the worst. It may be macabre, but such things must be discussed in the age of IS, Maute and killer fires.
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With the continuing armed conflict in Marawi, we should brace for a worse ranking after being rated as the 11th most dangerous country for tourists.
The 2017 Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report drawn up by the WEF placed the Philippines at 126th spot among 136 countries in ensuring the safety of tourists.
With the arrests of Papa, Mama and Sister Maute plus some of their other relatives and supporters including their alleged financier, ex-Marawi mayor Fajad Salic, it looks like the Armed Forces of the Philippines and police commandos are winning the battle in the city.
The challenge is to sustain the gains and keep the Mautes from spreading the violence to other parts of the country. The brothers Omarkhayam and Abdullah Maute, after all, are still at large, together with the Abu Sayyaf’s Isnilon Hapilon, tagged as the IS “emir” in the Philippines.
The AFP is verifying reports that Hapilon might have been killed in the Marawi offensive. But there have been such false alarms in the past.
People have not forgotten that Hapilon and his Abu Sayyaf band are responsible for beheading several foreign hostages in recent months. An intelligence report that the thugs planned to stage more kidnappings and attacks in Cebu and Bohol prompted the issuance of travel advisories by several foreign governments, and the consequent cancellation of planned tours to the Philippines by several groups.
That incident must have been factored into the WEF assessment of tourists’ safety in the Philippines.
The world has become an unsafe place. Terrorist violence has been facilitated by globalization, by advances in transportation and logistics, communications technology and financing instruments.
Nations facing threats vary only in terms of capability to contain security risks. How quickly and efficiently are terrorists neutralized? What preventive measures are being undertaken?
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Having won power on a platform of peace and order, President Duterte should be in a good position to deal with threats to the safety of tourists and the public in general. These threats include not only terrorism but also ordinary crimes: burglaries, thefts of mobile phones and computers, muggings and rape in taxis, and Asia’s highest homicide rate.
The threats of tough-talking Duterte against the bad guys are only as good as the performance of his cops and soldiers.
Along this line he should lean harder on the Philippine National Police to do a better job. The PNP is tasked not only to conduct arrests and solve crimes, but also to create an environment that discourages criminality.
Except in places facing extraordinary threats such as Marawi, crime prevention and maintenance of peace and order shouldn’t prove to be an impossible task.
Regular patrols and greater police visibility, checkpoints, CCTV monitoring, familiarity with the neighborhood for effective human intel, community outreach and serious enforcement of gun laws – these are just some of the measures that promote crime prevention and help maintain peace and order.
Many of these measures are not new; they just need more aggressive and effective implementation.
Cracking down on fences is a good way to discourage burglaries and theft of auto parts and phone copper wires as well as cell phone and laptop snatching. In our Port Area office in Manila, the phone lines are cut off periodically because the copper wires outside keep getting pilfered. If no one is buying those wires, what will the thieves do with the copper?
If PNP chief Ronald dela Rosa can stop preening for the cameras in preparation for a career shift upon his approaching retirement, he should be able to attend to these mundane details of keeping communities safe.
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The President should also ask his cops some questions in the continuing war on drugs. He should wonder how cops keep finding large stashes of shabu in raids without catching any suspects.
Before a raid is conducted, surveillance is an obvious requirement. Casing is done over several days or weeks, during which lawmen surely see people entering or leaving the shabu laboratory or distribution center.
If the surveillance team can be certain that illegal drugs are being produced in the premises, they should be able to time their raid when there are suspects who can be arrested – and not just the gardener and janitor.
Instead we keep hearing stories of shabu seized in raids without suspects. This was the case in the raid on a warehouse in Martinville Subdivision in Las Piñas last week, in which the PNP announced the seizure of 72 kilos of shabu valued at P360 million.
The suspected operator, a certain Mr. Lee, was not around. Why didn’t those casing the warehouse wait for Mr. Lee or anyone in charge to show up before staging the raid?
The nitty-gritty of keeping the public safe will rarely earn headlines, but this is indispensable for peace and order. Law enforcers need to work harder. And the President must send a strong message that the country will not become a regional base for IS. If this country is safe for Filipinos, it will be safe for tourists.