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The usual suspects

EDITORIAL

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10/21/2007

The make of the bomb used in the Glorietta 2 attack gives a political side to the dastardly act.

Based on initial police findings, the bombing was carried out with the use of C4, a type of explosive to which only the military has access. If this is true, military involvement in the blast, directly or indirectly, becomes mroe than a possibility.

If the military hand was indeed behind the attack, more questions are raised on its motive.

Unlike in the United States, where such incident can be undertaken by an indefinite list of interested groups and crackpots, the Philippines only has its usual suspects which are Muslim radicals and disgruntled elements in the military who are capable of undertaking wide-scale mayhem.

Of course, included on the usual suspect list is the current administration itself, which has all the reasons to pull a diversionary event amid the payoffs and kickback controversies facing it.

Giving Gloria the benefit of the doubt for now, the suspects then are narrowed to the Muslim radicals and the military.

While groups such as the Abu Sayyaf and some elements of secessionist groups in Mindanao have the ability to carry out such attack, the incendiaries used are improvised bombs which are usually packed with low-grade explosives that need a vehicle to reach a target or are attached to a volatile compound.

C4 is a dead give-away since no other than the military or those working for some so-called allies of Gloria with links to the Armed Forces who have access to military supplies can lay a hand on the explosives.

The motive should be viewed on immediate interests since religion and ideology are likely ruled out in the Glorietta 2 attack.

The latest noise emanating from the military involved threats of a new coup d’etat as a result of the wholesale payoffs on governors and congressmen, in the amount of P200,000 to P500,000 each, amid the aborted pay hike of P150 per day for each soldier in the battlefield.

What can be more revolting than Armed Forces Chief-of-Staff Hermogenes Esperon Jr. saying the funds are not there for Gloria’s promise to raise soldiers’ pay while Malacañang seems to be not short of money to buy support for the bogus Pulido impeachment complaint and the loyalty of congressmen and local executives now that her regime is tottering again, and dangerously, too.

To consider immediate interests, however, would take the search for the culprit on the doorsteps of Malacañang.

On the day of the bombing, bishops made a call for Gloria to resign, a call which came on the heels of a Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines statement calling politics under Gloria as morally bankrupt.

The political coalition that has succeeded in keeping Gloria in the saddle despite a unanimous clamor for her resignation after the “Hello Garci” scandal seems to be disintegrating.

The National Broadband Network-ZTE Corp. deal that features multimillion-peso kickbacks is pointing at her doorstep.

Her approval, make that disapproval, rate among the people is the most undesirable ever for any president of the country.

On the weighing scale, Gloria seems to be it, in terms of her being found much too wanting and enough to have her kicked out of Malacañang.

The question that needs to be asked is: Are Gloria and her allies capable of allowing the death of Filipinos as a means to keep her hold on power?

The answer is too obvious.

Look back to the time of the Rizal Day 2000 bombing, where the National Bureau of Investigation found this to o have been a political plot by the then opposition led by Gloria and her civil society, to speed up her power-grab from then sitting President Joseph Estrada.

Think back to May 1, 2001, when the masses marched to Malacañang to demand her ouster from the presidency she stole and when she ordered her military and police to shoot to kill the demonstrators and injured hundreds.

As stated. The answer is much too obvious.