What was all that scrambling about?

It was all over the news at the weekend that the Philippines had scrambled at least two (based on newspaper photographs) Philippine Air Force jets a few days earlier to intercept what was said to be an unidentified aircraft that had intruded into the country's territorial air space to the north. That the Philippines almost had nothing to "scramble" before made the incident quite exhilarating indeed.

The measure of interest generated was decent. The nationalistic fervor stoked, even more. It was a justifiable page one assignment. The accompanying picture of two Philippine fighter jets in action made good account of the adrenalin surge it inspired. Never mind if they were just FA-50 trainer jets made in South Korea and retrofitted to our fighter specifications. So long as they were jets and could fly, pwede na. Sulong Pinoy.

Yet I am a professional journalist with 40 years of experience and counting. I am required to set aside my personal biases in favor of the cold-blooded approach I must make with regard to the news. And I am sorry to say but there is just so much about the "scrambling" story that makes me, to say the least, uncomfortable.

For one, there was nowhere in the story that said anything about what "unidentified aircraft" the Philippine fighter jets were intercepting. Was it a military aircraft? If so, what type? Was it a fighter, a bomber or a reconnaissance plane? What was the nationality of the plane? Was it from any of the countries north of the Philippines like China, Taiwan, the two Koreas, Japan or Russia?

The incident, according to the news, was supposed to have happened last Thursday, September 2. A good three days passed before the incident made the news. Does that mean to say no one who had anything to do with the incident ever bothered to find out who the intruder might be? In the news story it was mentioned that we already have a Philippine Air Defense Control Center. What happened to it? Lost control?

It is not enough to just scramble jets without eventually finding out who it is that had intruded to warrant the scrambling. It always makes sense to know who we are dealing with, to see who among our enemies, or even friends, any potential problem might be coming from. If we keep at it, we will be no different from the person who comes running each time someone presses the doorbell only to find no one there.

The story succeeded only in establishing two facts; that two jets were scrambled and the jets were FA-50s. For this column, I even had to supply the info that the jets were Korean-made and were trainers that were retrofitted into fighters because the story did not have that backgrounder. Neither did it say where the jets took off from and all such other bits of data that would have made the story credible and a decent read.

For its utter lack of relevant details, the "scrambling" story is no different from its namesake scrambled eggs cooked without cooking oil, without salt, and without spices like sliced tomatoes, diced onions, and chopped garlic. Had I exercised any control over the story, I would have consigned it to the waste basket. That story, without the crucial details I wanted, was a non-story. Somebody scrambled jets. Period. So?

My suspicion is that the story was nothing but a floater, you know, like something someone tosses into the water, for anything that might want to take a nibble at it. Days before the scrambling, there was a legitimate news story about a real maritime exercise involving Coast Guard ships from the Philippines, the US, and Australia. Maybe someone felt left out. Maybe someone got envious. Maybe someone wanted a piece of the spotlight.