It would be a cliché to observe that it all played out like a movie crime cliché. The armed robbers were costumed as cops, and by virtue of their badge they marched into a plush mall whose shops catered well beyond most civil servants’ paygrades. They stopped at a retail store which sold watches that cost as much as an automobile or three. Emboldened by the aura of their uniforms and a lot of chutzpah, they smashed the display cases and seized the watches. Two real policemen happened to be nearby, and a gunfight ensued. One of the fake cops died on the scene, his corpse abandoned by his fellow gang members as they ran past terrified families of shoppers, diners and churchgoers. The mall’s soft ambient lighting guided their way as they glided on marble tiles accustomed to a more genteel set of pedestrians. The corridors of Greenbelt 5 were not intended to echo screams or gunfire, yet those sounds did resonate within the mall on Sunday noon, October 18, 2009, a day which ended with janitorial services bleaching the floors to rid it of the blood of a criminal.
The official police investigation of the Greenbelt 5 incident remains ongoing. Already, a fearsome set of suspects have been named – the Alvin Flores group cited as responsible for a series of visible robberies in Metro Manila these last several months. Chances are that the incident would be adjudged as nothing more sinister than a robbery. Yet in the hours after the assault on Greenbelt 5, speculation was rife online, and probably inside taxicabs too, that it couldn’t just have been a robbery. If the motive was simply to steal property of value, why stage the heist at the poetic yet inconvenient hour of high noon when witnesses would be at a maximum, when the lunch hour traffic poses a hurdle for a speedy getaway. Why be burdened with an increased degree of difficulty by selecting a target inside a guarded shopping mall, on the second floor to wit? There is also the fact that genuine Rolex watches are especially difficult to fence for optimal value as these are marked with serial numbers and thus easily identifiable as stolen merchandise.
If it were a robbery, it appears it was conceived in a bowl of stupid. For that reason, many of us with the mental acuity to design a more efficient robbery entertained the theory that a different motive was in play. What had struck me was how the plan seemed to be the result of a crude word association game. Swanky mall = Greenbelt 5. Rich enclave = Makati City. Family time = Sunday lunch. Luxury item = Rolex. If the masterminds had predetermined to inflict fear and paranoia in the hearts and minds of the wealthy class, at a time and place when they and their families would feel most secure, what transpired at Greenbelt proved an easy fit. And for the historical-minded, Rolex watches have symbolized darker implications, these having been the gifts offered by President Marcos to his favored generals just as martial law was about to be declared.
The confluence of many other people’s plans rarely reveal a grand rational design even as our brains and gut resist the notion that illogic is the driving force behind much of history’s events. As of now, there really has been no concrete evidence that has emerged this was anything more than a brazen yet ill-conceived attempt to steal expensive watches. What is certain is that the incident supplies predicates for those so-minded to assume the ulterior motive of sowing fear, specifically among the upper and middle classes. It would be easy to assume that the Sunday shooting had dented the psyches of those who heard the shots and ducked under dining tables, cowered beside toilets or ran away from what they thought was death; those who frantically paced as they awaited their loved ones to reply via text that they were OK; those who sat through the radio bulletins and mined through their Twitter feeds thinking, hell this could have been me in there. Even if indeliberately inflicted by the Greenbelt 5 gang, the fears they have generated should not be discounted lightly.
“People react to fear, not love; they don’t teach that in Sunday school but it’s true.” So preached Richard Nixon in secret at a moment before his own paranoia ultimately destroyed his presidency. It is an extremely provocative quote, especially for those who ascribe to 1 Corinthians 13. Lives dedicated to defeating that proposition are hailed as those worth living. Yet it presents manifest temptation to those who, by virtue of their careers or causes, need to elicit the reactions from others in order to meet success. Do you send out the company memo pleading for the respect due every person, or the one simply threatening a regime of fines and suspensions. Do you wear the disappointed face, or just spank the child. From the comfort of theory it is easier to assert the more civilized humane option, yet when faced with the expectations and demands of those depending on your decision, the necessity of the “darker” choice often looms as imperative.
Taken to logical extremes, this Nixonian philosophy justifies terrorist acts in the name of causes one may perceive as correct and redemptive. Terrorism does not merely encompass the deliberate infliction of hurt, it also utilizes violence as a coercive bargaining tool for an ulterior political end. Indeed, the statutory definition of terrorism in our country (under the Human Security Act of 2007) involves a set of retail crimes such as murder or kidnapping, coupled with the intent of “sowing and creating a condition of widespread and extraordinary fear and panic among the populace, in order to coerce the government to give in to an unlawful demand.” The inevitable irony is that the fear of more severe punishment has been employed to dissuade people from committing terrorist acts which “sow and create widespread and extraordinary fear and panic”. Realistically though, isn’t there really any other way to fight fear than with, fear itself?
Our own national experience is rife with events where fear was employed, whether by States and its political actors or by elements on the fringe, to effect momentous reactions. One horiffic yet creative example came during the Hukbalahap insurgency, when rebels were first slain then inflicted with gruesome mutilations so as to indicate to the rural peasantry that the dead had been victimized by the dread aswang. Godless commies meet godless monsters; and there are few more potent fears than those of supernatural predators. Fortunately, the best-remembered of these moments are those which spectacularly backfired. The public executions of the Gomburza priests, of Jose Rizal, and of Ninoy Aquino, were intended to cower a subjugated population into submission, yet they instead galvanized revolutions that led to the ouster of totalitarian rulers. What is believed to be the worst terrorist attack on Philippine soil – the 2004 bombing of Superferry 14 which killed 116 people – failed to paralyze the national life, or even regular shipping traffic. That attack had initially been thought to have been caused by an accidental gas explosion, and it was only five months later, when the urgency of the disaster had faded in the public eye, that it was ruled as a deliberate act. In contrast, the September 11 attacks were precisely designed by Al Qaeda so as the second tower would be hit as the television sets around the world were broadcasting the first tower in flames, maximizing such panic and fear that resulted into two wars and numerous insurgent movements.
Then there is Joe’s Department Store, once along Carriedo Street in Manila. On September 5, 1972, at 8:30 pm, a bomb exploded at Joe’s Department Store, killing at least one, wounding over 40 others. In the next two weeks, there would be many other bombs that would explode all around what is now Metro Manila. Water mains in San Juan, Meralco substations in Pasig and Makati. Both the Manila City Hall and the Quezon City Hall. One bomb fortunately was defused at the Good Earth Emporium in Santa Cruz. No one thought it the handiwork of a deranged mad bomber a la Unabomber. President Marcos accused the communist rebels, Senator Aquino accused the President and his military. That debate ended decisively with the declaration of martial law on September 21, a date when fear became systemic in the rule of law. Three months later, the point would be punctuated with the public execution – broadcast live on television – of a drug dealer. Ominous acronyms such as the ASSO (Arrest, Search and Seizure Order) and the PCO (Presidential Commitment Order) gave legal color for the practice of disappearing people in the middle of the night – not that unvarnished disappearances did not happen too. Fear of retaliation, exile or arrest allowed for the cession of many business enterprises and media outlets to the President and his cronies.
Our post-1986 polity was founded on a charter that preached freedom from fear by renewing emphasis on rights. Yet the most potent mass movements that have arisen since then were animated by fears that the amendment or revision of this Constitution would lead to a restoration of dictatorial rule. In recent years, it had proven especially convenient for the opposition to draw parallels between the dreaded Marcosian past and the Arroyo present as if the latter were a paint-by-numbers sequel. State of emergency = martial law. Hermon Lagman = Jonas Burgos. We Forum = Daily Tribune. The truth is imminently more complex than the syllogisms would suggest, yet the reductionist popular depictions of the current administration do align with the gut feeling, if not instinct, of a considerable majority of Filipinos that our leadership is not to be trusted.
As things appear now, the defining premise of the presumed presidential candidates for 2010 has been hopeful – that they do not embody a second term for Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. The conditions are such that it would be difficult for any presidential candidate to intimidate the electorate to vote him or her into power, as none have been able to since 1986. We may still be stuck in an outmoded form of retail politics shorn of concrete ideologies but at least it is joyful, one that promises hope and wealth, couched in song, dance, and the occasional harmonica playing. Philippine campaigns have never really exploited the us-versus-them theme above the level of playful joshing; never engendered a bunker mentality that foments paranoia among supporters. Negative campaign ads with sinister histrionics are part and parcel of American politics, but they have hardly penetrated here, and when they do, they fail quite thumpingly (see, e.g., anti-Estrada themed ads during the opposition-dominated 2007 senatorial elections). We enjoy our politics, and the fear-mongers are wet blankets.
Still, the vast majority of us live lives fraught with insecurity. We are under a fragile economy, under fragile weather. The food supply is not as assured as we would like. Health costs are high and catastrophic medical emergencies hardly succored by government insurance. And concerns over public safety erupt every so often, as it did with the Greenbelt 5 incident, amplified by a mass media captive to a dramatic story. It would be wrong, even foolish, to be dismissive of this instinct to be afraid. Fear, it should be remembered, was a necessary ingredient for our evolution as a species, for our dominion over the earth. In the days of prehistory, it was fear which kept us wary and agile against predators, and it is that same instinct carried over from our ancestors that jostles us from sleep when we are startled by loud noises such as the ringing of the alarm clock. Fear, for all its unedifying facets, allowed for the survival of the species. It is the fear of our death that drives us to invent vaccines, to explore new worlds in space, to care about climate change.
Our collecive insecurities as a society are open and ripe for exploitation by the current and future generations of politicians. To diminish these worries through self-hypnosis diminishes too our humanity and blinds us to the realities cast by a less delusional world. Nonetheless, the duty of proving Nixon wrong lies in our discernment over how best to respond to these fears. To combat the insecurities which plague us, some of our would-be leaders will call to action by urging forth our inner demons, others by appealing to our aspirations. Grant us the serene wisdom to know the difference.
by Oli Reyes
*originally published in the Philippines Free Press (Oct.25, 2009)
