Don't panic, we have everything under control
“Don't panic, everything is under control”
This is the official response to two bombs going off in Iligan City, and Jolo Sulu this morning in the Mindanao region. These were preceeded by a bomb going off beside a catholic church in Cotabato, Mindanao, killing 5 and wounding at least 40. In Jolo 6 died and 40 were wounded. Still waiting for more info on Iligan....
Fingers have been pointed at armed muslim rebel group Abu Sayaff or rogue elements of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) which has been fighting for autonomy in Mindanao for the past 30 years and still have their “Peace Panel” ready to restart the peace negotiations which stalled last year promoting an increase in fighting in the region.
However, MILF deny responsibility and so far no-one has come forward although there have been the usual rumours of foreign instigators like Indonesian Jihadis or government insiders whose interest's it serves to continue the fighting.
The journalists at the Police Press Corps who seem very agitated as they relate the news to me, mock this typical, official statement. It's what they have come to expect of officials but even as they laugh they look angry about it. “Always 'don't panic, everything is under control'” they are muttering to themselves. I also hear the dreaded words “martial law” mentioned.
People have been entertaining a fear of reinstated martial law ever since a small homemade bomb went off at the Ombudsman's office and a couple more were discovered undetonated last week at other locations.
I assumed the bombs were warnings to the Ombudsman and Dept of Agriculture staff who often receive death threats in the course of investigating governmental graft and corruption and unscrupulous agricultural land grabs, to back off from one of their investigations. Two bombs were undetonated and the one that did go off happened at night when there was no one around - they obviously weren't meant to hurt anyone.
But this being the Philippines, a simple warning was far too a benign explanation for the bombs and claims and counter claims have been splattered across the papers ever since. Most of the claims centre around a destabilisation plot. Some say the bombs were planted by the Palace (President Gloria Arroyo's seat of power, styled on the White House in the U.S.) so that she would have an excuse to declare martial law and extend her power this way - her attempts to extend her term of office through holding a “Con Ass” - congressional assembly to introduce “Cha Cha” (charter change) where they would change to a parliamentary system where the Prime Minister (Gloria) gets elected not by the public but by her friends in the senate - having failed.
The Palace has responded that it is a “militant leftist” (“leftists” usually seem to be called militant over here), plot to destabilise Gloria's government.
Another theory has been dubbed: "Oplan August Moon," a supposed plot to install members of the Philippine Military Academy Class of 1978 in key positions as part of a scheme to keep the President in power beyond 2010.
As Rizza has said, if the the bombs do come from someone in the government, the police investigators will never solve the case, “It's very sad”, but the police are also part of the government and won't find any government suspects unless the media can produce evidence which forces them to act she says.
