What purposes do terror bombings serve?

Indeed apart from causing deaths and injuries and severely damaging property, bombings are the authors’ gruesome way of ‘talking’ to authorities and calling attention to their demands, whether implied or explicit.

Is there substance to the increasingly loud whispers now landing in the mainstream press about a plot to sow fear through terror bombings and thus give the Arroyo regime the justification to declare a state of emergency or even put the Philippines under martial law?

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20090702-213425/We-did-bombings-for-govt

http://www.bulatlat.com/news/3-32/3-32-retrospect.html

Shades of Ferdinand Marcos?

There have been bombings in two or three places in Mindanao these past several days.

And earlier this week an explosion rocked the Office of the Ombudsman while improvised explosive devices were found in two places in Quezon City: at the Department of Agriculture and at the privately-owned condominium One Burgundy Place where the Arroyo family reportedly own a unit.

At the agriculture department the unexploded bomb was found to be made of the C-4 plastic explosive which is normally available only to the military.

Now there’s finger-pointing between the political opposition and administration quarters with the added speculation by some that the imperiled 2010 poll automation is part of the dark scenario called Oplan August Moon.

http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/home/nation/12575-palace-eyes-military-adventurists-in-destabilization-plot.html

http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/home/nation/12577-pma-78-power-grab-rumor-bared-as-puno-goes-on-leave.html

http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=482711&publicationSubCategoryId=63

http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/home/nation/12576-political-angle-eyed-in-failed-bombings.html

There’s also a report by Newsbreak magazine that there have been extortion-type pressures on the Filipino firm that has just pulled out of its partnership with the Smartmatic group in its winning bid for the automation of the elections:

http://newsbreak.com.ph/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6363&Itemid=88889051

These interlacing events are gravely disturbing if not injurious to public sanity, with the heightened deployment in the streets of heavily armed policemen giving citizens frightful recollections.

As this scenario plays out Filipinos are being told that Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has quietly returned from her two week trip to Japan and Brazil (with a side trip to Columbia)  and motored directly to the plush Asian Hospital in Alabang to self-quarantine herself and make sure she’s not carrying the influenza AH1N1 virus.

She obviously feels secure.

Filipinos don’t.

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