Protecting her Flanks

By Antonio C. Abaya
Written on June 23, 2008
For the Standard Today,
June 24 issue


President Arroyo must be throwing up her hands in mock despair, and she must be screaming to anyone within earshot that, "Ay naku. I am gone for less than 10 hours and, almost immediately, one ship with more than 700 people on board capsizes in a typhoon with practically no survivors."

For someone who fervently believes that "the Lord put me here," this tragic turn of events must have reinforced her feelings of indispensability, that without her physical presence, this country of 90 million would go to hell in a kariton..

President Arroyo and her entourage took off from the Ninoy Aquino International Airport at about 10:30 pm, Saturday, June 21, for a 10-day visit to the US.

At about this time, the 23,800 ton ferry Princess of the Stars, having weighed anchor at Manila port at 8:00 pm, must have been somewhere between the Batangas coast and Mindoro island, on its way to Cebu

Hours later, buffeted by heavy seas churned up by Typhoon 'Frank" the ship is said to have run aground and its engine to have died died off Sibuyan Island. At about 5:00 am, Sunday morning, the crew sounded the "Abandon ship!" alarm and the ferry listed to port, capsized and sank, with its inverted bow jutting up from the water.

At times like this, when the power is out and there is no TV, I instinctively reach for the radio to find out what is going on. I was able to tune in to 15 AM and 15 FM stations.

The FM stations were totally useless. They were all playing pop music as if there was no national emergency, with some obnoxious deejays actually making dumb and silly noises in an effort to sound funny.

Among the 15 AM stations, only four had any concept of public service as their staffs scrambled to get information from relevant offices like the weather bureau, the coast guard, the Red Cross, Meralco, etc to feed to their publics. These were dzRH, dzMM, dwIZ and Radio Veritas. Most of the rest were nonchalantly playing jungle music, two were airing religious programs. I stayed with dzRH.

It was on this station that I listened to the teleconference at around 10 am, between President Arroyo in San Francisco and the National Disaster Coordinating Council convened somewhere in Metro Manila.

President Arroyo was asking Admiral Querubin if his Coast Guard had issued a warning to all ships not to leave port because of the approaching typhoon. Yes, ma'am, we did. But why was the Princess of the Stars allowed to sail? Because, ma'am, it is 23,800 tons.

So your warning was not directed to ALL ships and boats. It was, ma'am. But you just said that the Princess of the Stars was not warned to stay in port. Yes, ma'am. Why didn't you tell that ship to seek shelter in Batangas port……

At this point, with the president's voice going up in pitch and decibel, no doubt out of sheer frustration, media was told to leave the conference hall…

But why did President Arroyo leave for the US, in the first place, her third visit since 2001? Is she planning to seek shelter soon, just in case..?

According to media reports, President Arroyo is scheduled to have a two-hour meeting with President Bush at the Oval Office on June 24; a "possible meeting" with Sen. Barack Obama in Washington DC on June 25; and a scheduled lunch with Sen. John McCain on June 28 in New York.

There are other scheduled meetings in between, including lunch with permanent representatives to the UN to push for the nomination of Sen. Miriam Santiago to the International Court of Justice; with certain US senators to thank the US Senate for its support for Philippjne war veterans; with business and investment leaders, with Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, and one official from the Department Of Agriculture; with Warren Buffet, the richest man in the world; etc. She will also strike the bell at the New York Stock Exchange. Inquirer, June 21).

But my sense is that the real purpose of the visit is the meetings with Bush, Obama and McCain. And she is meeting with these three to protect her flanks. Everything else is mere fluff.

The coordinator of this visit – San Francisco consul general (not Ambassador, as media describe him) Marciano Paynor, Jr. – says he did not see anything wrong with PGMA meeting McCain and Obama ahead of the presidential elections. He said that this was something done by every head of state or government. (Inquirer, June 21)

Really? In the past 60 days, President Bush was visited by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. I do not recall either of them meeting with McCain or Obama or Hillary Clinton.

President Arroyo has been trying to meet with Bush for years. In the APEC Summits in Hanoi and Sydney, her press people talked about 20-minute one-on-ones with George W, which were either cancelled by the Americans or reduced to a seven-minute "pull-over" photo-op, meaning, I presume, that he was pulled over on his way to or from the men's room.

In February 2006, on the 20th anniversary of Edsa I People Power "Revolution", it was suddenly announced that she was leaving for Washington to address the American Press Club (APC), but then, just as suddenly, her trip was cancelled. (See my article GMA to the USA, Feb. 12, 2006)

My interpretation of this little mystery was: Malacanang's PR retainer in Washington DC was able to wangle the speech invitation from the APC, a poorer cousin of the prestigious National Press Club With this speech invitation, the White House was asked for a meeting with Bush, since GMA was going to be in Washington anyway.. When the White House said no, the speech date with APC was cancelled.

President Arroyo is not the favorite "ally" of the Americans that she may think she is, after she withdrew the 51 Filipino policemen from the Coalition of the Willing in Iraq in 2004, and after she signed an agreement with Beijing for the joint exploration for oil in the Spratlys, also in 2004. In 2005, Vice-President Dick Cheney is said to have started moves to remove her from power, starting with the Hello Garci tapes, which, according to my information, were made possible by the US National Security Agency or NSA.

The Americans could not have grown fonder of her after the aborted, corruption-ridden ZTE broadband contract in 2007, which would have given the Chinese total and instant knowledge of all decisions of the Philippine government, including sensitive ones such as on the positioning of US troops and intel assets in Mindanao, Sulu, and Basilan. How could she have been so naïve as to be unaware of the consequences of her actions?

President Arroyo obviously wants to personally explain to Bush (and his successor) why she did what she has done. And perhaps sound them out on a possible declaration of martial law if and when it becomes necessary in 2009 or 2010, given the deteriorating global situation. Or a possible asylum in San Francisco, just in case. But two hours?

Philippine leaders should shed their inferiority complex and realize that their true weight on the world stage is measured, not by the ability of their gofers to pull over the American president from the men's room for a seven-minute photo-op, but by the calibre of those who come and seek an audience with them.

And in the past 60 days, who have come calling in Malacanang? The president of Palau (pop. 20,800 at low tide). And the King of Lesotho, who took along three of his 15 wives. Perhaps he thought his fellow polygamist Erap was still president of the Philippines. *****.