Bombing Resilience Post
The man readies for the day. It is going to be an especially busy one, a special day after all the months and years of preparation of him and his whole group; this is the big one. He prays, as all proper people must, and then fixes his hair. He then looks at a large television near his bed, a piece of art and technology, now adopted for a greater destiny. Once a mere dumb receiver of radio signals from the mass media, soon it shall convey the great message: We're Coming. Fear Us.
The man is now on the ramp up to the ship, the platform from which the message in his TV shall be broadcast soon. To everyone else around him it is more of a routine trip home to their wives, kids, and mistresses, or a trip to forge a new life away from the hardships of the hometown. For others it would be the trip home to their one and only; they would be tying the knot and the only thing seperating the lovers would be the snaking seas surrounding the islands of the Philippine archipelago. But not to the man, for he knows that he would not be going to the ship's destination today. Nor would anybody else around him.
The port authorities noticed nothing odd about the man; just some guy with a bulking television set. Just a customer, just another brick on the shipping empire they are to defend. Even when the man left the ship later no one cared; the man must have just wanted to buy some snacks, or relieved himself on a proper land-based toilet. Good for the shipping lines as well; cleaning ship septic tanks stil cost money, and every person not adding to the sewage costs still help. Not even when the man did not return did they mind; they are already are paid, and it would not matter for some other stranger to not return to his ship. Tough luck for the man to miss his ship, right?
A few hours later, Superferry 14 erupts in violent flames, killing 116 Filipinos. Ironic, really, to have an fire in the middle of the ocean, and how such an inferno could be started by just only eight pounds of TNT, easily hidden in a non-working cathode ray tube television. The man, safely at land with his Abu Sayyaf comrades, watches the news a few days later. He has no intention of sinking with the ship he is going to sink, and now that ship is a burnt hulk. The message has been sent: "Fear us. We are the..."
But what is this? The NPA, the MNLF, the MILF, the Alex Boncayo Brigade, and all other fellow enemies of the state are now claiming that they caused the explosion. Despite the only thing relating his group with theirs is their collective dislike of the government. The bomb is THEIR bomb. Not the commies, nor the softie Moros, but THEIRS. They took the effort of procuring and smuggling all those TNT's into a proper bomb. They were the ones that hid the whole package into a big television; and that was their idea as well. They were the ones who wired the trigger device so that their agent could flee the ship, and die another day instead for the just cause. It was theirs, theirs, and their message of the great Moro revolution as planned by THEM is now being hijacked by the rowdy bunch of violent hooligans with their own guns and twisted, pointless causes.
The government's verdict? Gas explosion, most likely. Probably from not emptying the ship's septic tank. The man had to then go to the government to claim the explosion as their actual bomb, and not some routine maintenance accident. He actually had to admit that his group the Abu Sayyaf were the ones who bombed Superferry 14, to warn the government to not mess with them Moros. And since now he is in the government's custody just to prove to Malacanang that the Superferry 14 bomb is theirs, they suddenly seemed not so terrifying now in jail, now are they? The point of the message is now lost.
Yet we forget. We'd blame it on undisposed excrement instead. Just like what happened to the Robinsons Galleria explosion three years later. Now who remembers the Superferry bombing? Has it really entered the public consciousness that any time now there is something ticking underneath their seat ready to blast them into kingdom come? No, right? No. It may be our mistake of not remembering the lessons of our insurgency-filled history for having us endure some more freak terrorist bombings. But then, it may be not a mistake in the first place. It is something very Filipino to just live life as normally as they can. Sure, other countries on both sides of the War on Terror also endure bombings with remarkable lack of fear and terror, but the reasons for remaining calm are different. THe Americans are anxious to have a casus belli against some other oil-rich nation, while the British have to keep up the tradition of the stiff upper lip. The war-hardened jihad warriors of Afghanistan would be excited of getting their virgins, while their more blood-knightly brothers are willing to put another notch on their lineage's collective gun-sword, from the Persians to the Greek, to the Soviets, and now to the Amerikans. The Israelites would likely accept the constant threats to their daily lives as a sign that their salvation by God of Abraham is making their Islam Gentile neighbors jealous.
But the Filipinos? We don't have a powerful military to lean on in times of bombings unlike the Israelis, nor a skilled espionage network like the Americans. We don't necessarily have the sense of collective sense of invulnerability like the Russians in their undominated snowlands have. We DO have a lot to lose, unlike the Afghans, and not much of an urge to kill threats to our security either. Quite simply, we just accept that bombings occur, then go on. If we finally get blown up, then at least we get to see the roof of our house, maybe spot the holes where the rain gets in our homes. However, unlike the British who would react to the same with some wisecrack or two, we Filipinos won't really expect to fix the hole on the roof. Unlike the British who would take the chance to boast of having survived that and still stand strong as a nation, here in the Philippines there is just the general sense that everything is doomed, so why worry about today when you could be dead tomorrow? Fatalist, really, and such a mood is most certainly not conducive for building a great nation. But most certainly we would not be disappointed when we fail either, since there are no expectations in the first place.
And yes, that is the strength of the Filipino character, the knowledge that whatever you throw at us just might kill us, and when we are dead it won't hurt anymore. As I repeat, why worry about today when you could be dead tomorrow? And this is indeed, truly enough for us to march, with glum faces of grim determination, through and even past Somewhere Down the Road...to Perdition. Ahahahaha.
The man is now on the ramp up to the ship, the platform from which the message in his TV shall be broadcast soon. To everyone else around him it is more of a routine trip home to their wives, kids, and mistresses, or a trip to forge a new life away from the hardships of the hometown. For others it would be the trip home to their one and only; they would be tying the knot and the only thing seperating the lovers would be the snaking seas surrounding the islands of the Philippine archipelago. But not to the man, for he knows that he would not be going to the ship's destination today. Nor would anybody else around him.
The port authorities noticed nothing odd about the man; just some guy with a bulking television set. Just a customer, just another brick on the shipping empire they are to defend. Even when the man left the ship later no one cared; the man must have just wanted to buy some snacks, or relieved himself on a proper land-based toilet. Good for the shipping lines as well; cleaning ship septic tanks stil cost money, and every person not adding to the sewage costs still help. Not even when the man did not return did they mind; they are already are paid, and it would not matter for some other stranger to not return to his ship. Tough luck for the man to miss his ship, right?
A few hours later, Superferry 14 erupts in violent flames, killing 116 Filipinos. Ironic, really, to have an fire in the middle of the ocean, and how such an inferno could be started by just only eight pounds of TNT, easily hidden in a non-working cathode ray tube television. The man, safely at land with his Abu Sayyaf comrades, watches the news a few days later. He has no intention of sinking with the ship he is going to sink, and now that ship is a burnt hulk. The message has been sent: "Fear us. We are the..."
But what is this? The NPA, the MNLF, the MILF, the Alex Boncayo Brigade, and all other fellow enemies of the state are now claiming that they caused the explosion. Despite the only thing relating his group with theirs is their collective dislike of the government. The bomb is THEIR bomb. Not the commies, nor the softie Moros, but THEIRS. They took the effort of procuring and smuggling all those TNT's into a proper bomb. They were the ones that hid the whole package into a big television; and that was their idea as well. They were the ones who wired the trigger device so that their agent could flee the ship, and die another day instead for the just cause. It was theirs, theirs, and their message of the great Moro revolution as planned by THEM is now being hijacked by the rowdy bunch of violent hooligans with their own guns and twisted, pointless causes.
The government's verdict? Gas explosion, most likely. Probably from not emptying the ship's septic tank. The man had to then go to the government to claim the explosion as their actual bomb, and not some routine maintenance accident. He actually had to admit that his group the Abu Sayyaf were the ones who bombed Superferry 14, to warn the government to not mess with them Moros. And since now he is in the government's custody just to prove to Malacanang that the Superferry 14 bomb is theirs, they suddenly seemed not so terrifying now in jail, now are they? The point of the message is now lost.
Yet we forget. We'd blame it on undisposed excrement instead. Just like what happened to the Robinsons Galleria explosion three years later. Now who remembers the Superferry bombing? Has it really entered the public consciousness that any time now there is something ticking underneath their seat ready to blast them into kingdom come? No, right? No. It may be our mistake of not remembering the lessons of our insurgency-filled history for having us endure some more freak terrorist bombings. But then, it may be not a mistake in the first place. It is something very Filipino to just live life as normally as they can. Sure, other countries on both sides of the War on Terror also endure bombings with remarkable lack of fear and terror, but the reasons for remaining calm are different. THe Americans are anxious to have a casus belli against some other oil-rich nation, while the British have to keep up the tradition of the stiff upper lip. The war-hardened jihad warriors of Afghanistan would be excited of getting their virgins, while their more blood-knightly brothers are willing to put another notch on their lineage's collective gun-sword, from the Persians to the Greek, to the Soviets, and now to the Amerikans. The Israelites would likely accept the constant threats to their daily lives as a sign that their salvation by God of Abraham is making their Islam Gentile neighbors jealous.
But the Filipinos? We don't have a powerful military to lean on in times of bombings unlike the Israelis, nor a skilled espionage network like the Americans. We don't necessarily have the sense of collective sense of invulnerability like the Russians in their undominated snowlands have. We DO have a lot to lose, unlike the Afghans, and not much of an urge to kill threats to our security either. Quite simply, we just accept that bombings occur, then go on. If we finally get blown up, then at least we get to see the roof of our house, maybe spot the holes where the rain gets in our homes. However, unlike the British who would react to the same with some wisecrack or two, we Filipinos won't really expect to fix the hole on the roof. Unlike the British who would take the chance to boast of having survived that and still stand strong as a nation, here in the Philippines there is just the general sense that everything is doomed, so why worry about today when you could be dead tomorrow? Fatalist, really, and such a mood is most certainly not conducive for building a great nation. But most certainly we would not be disappointed when we fail either, since there are no expectations in the first place.
And yes, that is the strength of the Filipino character, the knowledge that whatever you throw at us just might kill us, and when we are dead it won't hurt anymore. As I repeat, why worry about today when you could be dead tomorrow? And this is indeed, truly enough for us to march, with glum faces of grim determination, through and even past Somewhere Down the Road...to Perdition. Ahahahaha.