Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has the utterly undeserved reputation of being a supporter of the Global War on Terrorism provoked by Al Qaeda’s September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington DC. She is no such thing and in this post we revisit the awful truth about her record as financial supporter of terrorist activities. The months-long Red Cross hostage situation in Sulu is evolving into a major crisis as the government looks increasingly unable to do anything at all about it. It’s Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s ransom paying habits running right smack into the firm and unbending policy of the International Red Cross NEVER to pay ransoms in these terrorist kidnapping cases.
It was painful to watch Sen. Dick Gordon on Strictly Politics with Pia Hontiveros tonight, with Sen. Rodolfo Biazon discussing this subject mater.
Just as in the time of Kumander Robot we are all hostages. Again!
Thanks a lot, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, habibi. May you be incarnated as 72 raisins and be given to Albader Parad in a vat of Ebola Reston Virus-infected pork rinds when you both go to Paradise.
Her government is utterly helpless because she has never done anything but hurriedly paid ransom for such hostages, unless of course they are no-account unknowns like those six summer students kidnapped and beheaded by the same bunch of head-hunting, blood thirsty savages posing as liberators of the Muslim people. This bad run of karma began way, way back when she ransomed her billionaire pal and campaign contributor, Reghis Romero, from the clutches of Kumander Robot, but left missionaries Martin and Gracia Burnham, Guillermo Sobero (later beheaded for consorting with an ASG “princess”), and dozens of non-VIP hostages who were kidnapped from Dos Palmas, robbed, killed, raped and “wedded” by the bandit terrorists in a year long spree during which the whole nation was hostaged.
The high points of GMA’s career of sponsoring and aiding terrorists through the payment of bribes continued through the Angelo de la Cruz affair in Iraq during which she memorably repositioned the Philippine Humanitarian Forces into a humvee and high-tailed it back to Pampanga after paying a fabulous $2 million ransom; the hostaging and ransoming (through the payment of 500,000 pesos room and board for the clueless General Benjamin Muhammad Dolorfino who still has a major post in the Southern Command; the hostaging of Fr. Giancarlo Bossi, who was ransomed by the Catholic Church and Ronnie Puno after the Abu Sayyaf ambushed, killed, beheaded and robbed 14 Marines looking for the Catholic priest and architect of that hare-brained MOA-AD Rodolofo Garcia saved the MILF/ASG gang responsible for it from arrest warrants handed down by the Basilan RTC by calling an independent investigation and just forgetting the supreme sacrifice made by those Marines; on through to Ces Drilon and eight or nine separate KFRs that have occurred just since that 20 to 40 million peso ransom was paid; culminating in the present thrombosis of principle, policy and will on the part of the government.
Popularity: 1% [?]
The truth is : If you negotiate with Terrorists.
You will encourage Terrorism. More kidnappings
will occur.
A good case was in the Province of Fallujah, Iraq.
It was a sanctuary of the Al Queda in Iraq. Hostages were kidnapped almost daily. The hostages were used as propaganda tool for the Terrorist. They were also beheaded on TV.
Only when the U.S. military invaded the Fallujah
Province that the kidnapping stopped. Then, the
the head of the Al Queda,Abu Musaf Zarkawi was killed.
That was the beginning of the end of the Al Queda
in Iraq. They were defeated.
If you give an inch to a Terrorist. He will eat you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_0l14CzIos&feature=related
The link above is the intro music for a sick TV show called “The Hostage”. Depicting the life of what the title suggests, in malaria infested jungles. Previously on The Hostage, Parad attempted to break through a military dragnet but failed. Mad as hell he canceled bathroom privileges to the cast. He suspects they left a trail for the Marines to sniff out their lair. Not too soft, not too hard, soon green and evil considering their diet. Meanwhile a debate that opened a can of whop ass for Sen. Gordon about trusting an Abbu Sayyaf, and generally how to deal with a hostage situation by the ASG was opened in panic, three Marines died maybe not as a result of the meddling, the best small unit tactics were applied, it was just their time. And the money (meaning the hostages)? Well, the vics themselves are still… in the jungles baby…your gonna die..in the jungle welcome to the jungle want to bring you to your shananannananana knees knees. Its gonna bring you..down. Huh! Every Thursdays at 9 only on Vivid Entertainment Channel. (Parental Guidance is futile)
Stay the hell away from that place.
Let’s give negotiation a chance. Violence the last option.
Oh, in the case of kidnapping the media should be out of the loop. They’re the ones that make issues and things confusing and intriguing.j
This should be the SOP of our policemen and negotiators.
Make the media the last one to know.
You cannot negotiate with People who believes that
suicide is a ticket to Paradise with 72 virgins
and mansions as rewards.
It’s best the Vatican bump up their promise of heaven with more virgins than the Muslims. See what people has to go thru just to get those 72 virgins.:)
do you have any solid basis for boldly proclaiming here that gma paid all that ransom money herself either with government funds or with her own money? you always speak with authoritarian pretensions. where do you get that verbal arrogance? from being a dean or whatever?
you have to walk in gma’s shoes before you could judge her the way you do – with burning hatred. i bet, for every one like you who condemns the president for helping to save one angelo de la cruz, or a reghis romero, there’s at least another one who thanks her for it. of course, she cannot save each and every unfortunate victim but to accuse her of being selective is unmitigated cruelty, if not idiocy, in my view.
why am i not surprised that in your toxic regard for gma, you overlook the heinous perpetrators of all these kidnappings and beheadings, to whom all blame should belong?
Ben, all these holabalo about GMA are coming from media practitioners who got it from a peanut vendor then made it into news.
Ignore the article!
Because if GMA were really corrupt and evidences to support it, she could have been prosecuted already. In the absence of prosecution it’s all hearsay.
The media practitioners might as well go back to kindergarten section 666.
If they claim that GMA bought all the people to testify against. Slipped money into prosecutors and senators and ombudsman … THEN, WE BETTER WHIP-OUT OUR ROSARIES AND PRAY TO GOD ALMIGHTY!
Because all the above I mentioned can be bought to the highest bidder.
If they are bought and still sitting in their position of authority, what good is an honest president comes 2010?
Bencard,
You are always asking tricky–but valid–questions. You know of course that this is not a Regional Trial Court, so of course, I have no evidence of the sort you have in mind. Neither are we adversaries at this moment in a legal procedure covered by the Rules of Court.
Yet she is the leader, and your own legal mind would have to concede that as such, she has the duty and the responsibility to uphold the policies she herself “proclaims with verbal force”–and apparently only that.
But I will concede, this is a “tragic human situation” and not one of our theological oasis of discussion about the Infinite and unreachable.
And of course, I am not God to judge her.
But the record is as clear as day. Her record.
Let History’s Vast Audience be the judge and jury of it, a History that has already begun.
djb, it seems that in this matter of saving the lives of kidnap victims, among other things, the president is again “damned if she does, and damned if she doesn’t” in your mind and in that of other like-minded individuals.
Bencard,
Her record speaks for itself and does not need me to explain it…only to point it out. I am not a Judge, but I like to think that thinking straight is my birthright and duty, as a member of the Jury.
Terrorism is a terrible thing. But she IS the President, not an FV Blogger. It all comes with the territory.
She has portrayed herself as a fighter of terrorism. But it seems she has done nothing but aid it with her self-preserving hypocrisy.
On top of that are her corruptions, her destruction of the Constitutional order in 2001, her violations of human rights, and an insuperable vanity.
She is headed for perdition. And rightly so.
DJB, have you gotten a chance to read Maria Ressa’s book Seeds of Terror? She has most interesting insights into Arroyo’s Terror stance.
cocoy,
I have that book, though it was written some years ago and likely Maria Ressa’s understanding of GMA has evolved. But was there something in particular you had in mind?
we are not hostages…thats an understatement. Hostage takers feed their hostages..keep them alive. We are slaves, slaves of the current system, existing and former politicians and govt officials…we work and pay our taxes but we dont get anything in return, they dont pay taxes but gets the tax money for themselves…we are told to follow the laws and they dont..if get caught we are persecuted and they are not.
we have been slaves sine time in memorial…we are slaves because we are all stupid..we pretend to be articulate in blogs such as FV but the truth is we are all stupid…BECAUSE WE KEPT ON VOTING, CAMPAIGNING, DEFENDING AND WORSHIPPING THOSE WHO ROB US AND ENSLAVE US…
AND NEXT YEAR..IN 2010…WE WILL ONCE AGAIN TELL THE WHOLE WORLD HOW STUPID AND IDIOTS WE FILIPINOS ARE!
This is a question for Angela Stuart Santiago as Michael Dukakis…
Could you honestly take this position if that was your sister or brother in the hands of the terrorist Abu Sayyaf?
We do have a law against this sort of thing you know. And it isn’t as if the government could accede to the Abu Sayyaf’s demand, because we also have a Constitution.
I’m very disappointed that this blog does not uphold the Rule of Law, and insTead abets a philosophy of victimology that can only lead to more and deadlier violence.
If you can justify in your mind a heinous crime that grossly violates the Geneva Conventions, then you are no different than those alleged CIA torturers.
Indeed if you can justify Kidnap for Ransom, Kidnap for Homeland, or just plain terrorist kidnapping, then you can also justify the ONE TON bomb that Dulmatin is preparing to explode, probably in Greenbelt where you or OUR friends like to hang out. You can justify a Mumbai-style attack on a crowded Cotabato or Cagayan de Oro bus station.
This is moral torpitude of the most shameful order Angela. Please reconsider this most despicable position.
Haven’t you been one of the Lynch Mob ulutating over the violation of Philippine sovereignty because of the Subic Rape case?
Now you want to give away territory.
Moral inconsistency is the hallmark of intellectual scoundrels.
Up till now I have thought much more highly of you.
This post creates reasonable doubt of that previous estimate.
But don’t take it from me. Ask your friends and relatives and tell them you would be willing for them to be kidnapped, and then beheaded if the Philippines refuses to violate its own constitution.
This post of Angela’s proves that “liberals” are not at all what they portray themselves to be, that they bleeding hearts for people suffering. This is a cold-hearted, intellectualized position that ignores the fact that three human beings who had dedicated their lives to nothing but helping others and relieving human pain and suffering among the Bangsamoro people themselves, have been kidnapped by savages and will most probably end up with their heads as red as melons in a burlap bag of your weaving.
The so called homeland demand is just a cover for the sudden realization that the IRC NEVER pays ransom.
This is a setup for the coming ritualized decapitation, probably the One Armed Bandit Terrorist executioner, Radullan Sahiron, or whoever his stand in is nowadays. By making a demand they know the Philippine Government cannot give in to (unlike paying ransoms which it can do secretly) and knowing people like you will give them plenty of cover and rationalization, it looks like they are indeed getting ready to behead their hostages, because they won’t long afford to give the food shelter and lodging you so kindly commend them for.
I shall return with pictures of what you seem to think is “freedom fighting” if and when the Sword (al-Harakatul al-Islamiya) falls, so that it may fall also on your shrivelled up conscience.
it’s good you know you’re not a judge, djb. for a moment i thought you were taking jcc’s obvious tongue-in-cheek (if not insulting) caricature of you as “justice djb” seriously. you see, you first have to be an authentic lawyer to be a judge or justice. a vote by some karlpopper would not make you one.
anyway, what “record” are you talking about as basis that gma paid ransom to kidnappers with her own, or government’s, funds?
do you really think, sane as you are apparently, that the president is to blame for everything bad that happens in the country? where did you get the license to defame her publicly every time you have an attack of anti-gma psychosis?
btw, my questions are not tricky, probably only difficult if you don’t have the answer, or when it would show that your position is untenable . and, of course, they are valid by themselves – not because you say so.
Bencard, Filipinos has centralized mentality. A driver running over a pedestrian in Jolo is blamed on the presidency. A child hanging herself in Davao, Presidency is at falt.
This is media’s fault.
DJB,
I dunno. I realize the buck stops at the President’s oor, but to pin all the blame on the Chief Executive is absurd, almost dense I must say. I agree with bencard and renato with their comments above.
There are what are called ground operating teams (GOTs). In the present ICRC kidnapping case, the tactical and approaches are made by Sulu Governor Abdusakur Tan (with probable oversight from DILG Secretary Ronaldo Puno).
As in any hostage situation, the ground team assesses the situation, considers the pluses and minuses of courses of action, and gets clearance from the Chief Executive, if necessary. Otherwise, this ground team is responsible for the consequences.
It’s like immediately blaming the U.S. President for the explosion of space shuttle Columbia when the NASA ground team in Houston should be queried or investigated first.
DJB, the media practitioners didn’t imposed News Blackout on ICRC kidnapping? Hala! If ever ICRC hostages get killed they’ll be blamed for angering Abu Sayaff because they published the kidnapping :)
The hostages! The hostages!
Mr., Ms. and Attorneh Dukakis.
Bencard,
I am sorely disappointed in you as a lawyer-explainer. You are often unwilling to dig deep enough in yourself to find that explanation. It seems that when you see a post about the Law, you assume the non lawyers in the discussion are unfit to say anything intelligent there. But I know many lawyers who CAN explain the law, unfortunately they are not also bloggers like you, who has at least the humility to wade in here with others and presumably are willing to share your knowledge and wisdom. But if all you do is point to your credentials and the lack of them in others, without proving it with some brilliant and convincing demonstration, then we are unimpressed. For in this forum ALL the participants credentials are pretty much meaningless, because it is not our real selves that are contending, but our ideas and beliefs acting through us.
It’s the War of the Memes.
But that is about as metaphysical as I want to get about the matter.
It’s only when we get smart and sharp that we have a “point” to make. You often enough do that so I ALWAYS try to see what that point is. I don’t always succeed, but I certainly don’t see you as a Benign0, or that really, really strange bird, Renato Pacifico, whom I’m still trying to figure out. I have a suspicion he IS B0! hehe.
Please stop thinking that anything which transpires here is any reflection on you as a lawyer though. For whatever it is worth I think you probably are a good lawyer, but remember even good auto mechanics are often unable to intelligently explain Internal Combustion, even if they often act like they know more about it than Mechangnical Engineers. Then again, many Mechanical Engineers wouldn’t know a screw driver from a jackhammer.
This is not the m.v. Pissing Contest though it often feels that way. We need you on-board, though, for the many Dangerous Shoals yet ahead.
Look, I’m still kicking myself in the butt for not even knowing about RA8505 and parity of privacy rights.
Why didn’t any of our brilliant lawyers ever point that out?
DJB, it’s not us to know about RA8505. It’s the peryodistas job to inform us.
Why didn’t our brilliant peryodistas ever point that out?
Let us just say I’m alter-ego of B0! :)
B0! is not fond of rejoinders. B0! has someone else do the talking for him :)
hehe, well it’s because “our brilliant peryodistas” were too busy HIDING the body of their own crimes against RA8505. You are right about “pekeng” peryodistas, Benign1. Joke lang.
DJB, if ever we have a real serious coup-de-t’at. The first people has to go are the brilliant peryodistas.
They should be lined up in Luneta. Naked. Spread-eagle. One lash for every question that they cannot answer satisfactorily.
I got a thousand questions for each of them. I hope they’ll survive with all the questions I have for them. :)
The pekeng-peryodistas should be charged under RA8505 Sec 3(d) in the case of Nicole v Smith. PRONTO! NOW!
Problem is peryodistas are cabal of crime industry. So who’d be courageous enough to charge them under RA8505?
Don’t know how old you are of course, Renato, but the Press that we have today suffered a lot under Martial Law. In fact what you see now as the big newspaper, PDI, still has the mentality and the attitudes of the old Mosquito Press from which it sprang. It’s never been able to grow into an institution and is really a communist mass organization being used by the elite Prieto family for its own purposes.
You can contribute a lot around here however by exposing things like this about RA 8505. Go back through the coverage of the Subic Rape Case and view the actions of the Press in the light of RA 8505.
You will be outraged even more.
DJB, our journalists are hired to speak and write good country club english. Not to cover their specialties. Military men should cover the military. Lawyers should cover Justice Department and the Supreme Court and the bungling Senate.
We are debating events based on pekeng-peryodistas published news articles that are not properly vetted with minimal fact-checking.
Until now, no pekeng-peryodistas has told us what Airline Nicole took, when she left, what Visa she held, who petitioned her, if any.
They are waiting for forumers and bloggers to come up with “facts”.
We need change and change should start with pekeng-peryodistas and pekeng-peryodiko.
Once we have changed this industry that is the only time the people can vote intelligently for elected office.
“It’s the War of the Memes.” -DJB
BTW, I had the chance to see Manolo’s YouTube clip wherein you were one of The Explainers.
I must say the Rizalist had a pretty aggressive, pure science, take-no-prisoners attitude man!
But sometimes, you must also listen. I say the priest did have some enlightening words, Catholic as he is.
the problem, djb, is that you don’t read my comments, a.k.a. “explanations”, because you want to ignore information that runs counter to your preconceived notions about the law, or against your point of view. i feel like an idiot having to repeat a point to you 3 or 4 times and still receive neither concurrence nor rebuttal. case in point: read my entries in your post “presumption of innocence”, or the recent one by abe margallo. then read your responses, if any.
btw, djb, i said it before and i say it again. read my lips. I DON’T CARE IF YOU ARE UNIMPRESSED with my “explanations”. but speak for yourself and don’t presume others feel the same way. that’s f…ng arrogant!
Phil Manila,
If you’ve ever been on TV, you will know that one hour goes by like one minute. It’s only on blogs that we have the luxury of a long, sometimes endless repartee. I have no problem talking with priests, some of my best friends ARE priests, and even a Bishop or two. But he fact of having “Father” or “Reverend” before one’s name does not exempt their ideas from rebuttal by atheists.
My attitude towards Religion is like my attitude towards Astrology. As long as they don’t pretend they have anything more to say about Astronomy or Reason, it’s live and let live. But much as I liked the theologian on the show, (we had a nice conversation afterwards), he was unprepared and substandard as other theologians that I know.
Obsequiousness is for kneelers and worshippers of bone and bits of wooden idols. It is time to let go the things from man’s fearful childhood and put Religion on the Entertainment and Lifestyle pages.
Quit worrying about your reputation and amor propio Bencard. Nobody cares about them either! Keep making your arguments, but you gotta do better man. You are only embarrassing yourself to the poets.
“72 raisins” again DJB, huh!
danilo,
I stand corrected, 72 grapes.
me, djb? worry about my reputation? i’m not the one who calls himself “dean” like it was a name or something. i live in america long enough to learn not to be awed by title or wealth, especially by
those who love to flaunt them.
what poet embarrassed me? just because some layman knew how to search google, i’ve been shamed? what infantile way of thinking! i will make my arguments “better” if you promise to make your posts intellectually passable, man.
there’s something wrong with DJB lately? :)
Bencard,
that happens to be the name on my birth certificate. Dean Jorge Bocobo. Is “bencard” what it says on yours? Aww, did i hurt ur wittle feelings? Sorry, okay?
i don’t know what sort of explanation and clarification would benefit you DJB, but at least i am true to you when I do it, without any malice of sarcasm and hypocrisy, let alone adversarial caress.
that is, if we only sign in here at FV just for the sake of witty arguments and never for the ultimate discovery of facts and truth, the acknowledgment thereof and the rectification of those previously conjured wrong idea about something abetted by unfettered, therefore perverted exploit of the thing so-called “freedom of expression” then we can never reach at anything mutually agreed upon through objective rationality.
like what i said, it’s not these DJB’s “72 grapes” that matters among the abu sayyaf, its “72 money” that matters in its venture.
So much with this drama orchestrated by those men-in-uniform dipping into the business. Why should robot et al be “executed” inside the Bagong Diwa by heavy police clad in full battle gear? Is it because he had something to “sing” so he must be prevented from presenting his piece?
of course, I dare say, kidnappers must have no place in the society, more so those men-in-uniform behind it.
danilo,
I do appreciate your participation and the last two comments especially. We need the point of view of those who want to save Islamic societies from whatever it is that ails them, even if it be Islam.
I concede I know very little about Islam itself as it has not been a part of my personal experience. My views of it are shaped by the context of my society and my life, and what little about it I have read in newspapers, blogs and books.
But I do not believe it is unique as a Religion and the things I find absurd about its beliefs are far surpassed by those absurdities that I AM familiar with in Christianity, and specifically Roman Catholicism.
You have been more than a good sport and are a worthy exponent of a point of view I disagree with but cannot ignore or treat lightly.
The matter of grapes or raisins or virgins is not just a linguistic “caress” (nice touch there!) but a serious attempt to elicit from you some discussion of the terrorist tactic of suicide bombers and KFR, which I believe has as much of a religious motivation that is also cultural, historical and political.
Do you think suicide bombing done in order to go to Paradise (for whatever number of whatever) is a legitimate tactic?