During yesterday’s security briefing for the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines, I asked the President’s national security adviser Norberto Gonzales why he once planted a bomb in a building which caused it to burn. And whether this could be considered an act of terrorism under present laws. He said he did it for a friend.

He replied, “We do not have bombs yet (then). It’s probably more incendiary. It’s ok with me. Those are in the past. Some of those I participated with are still living and they may not want it (known) .”

I then asked him – Would you consider, say under present laws, what you did is an act of terrorism? What disturbs me (is) how can we be assured that the government, namely you, is not part of any of the bombings now?

But he dodged the question and merely repeated it was all in the past and “I did it for a friend.”

I smile whenever I hear that over 12,000 policemen and soldiers will physically secure President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and legislators this Monday when she delivers her State of the Nation address.
Because the real threat to their security in office is a grandmother lying on her sick bed, agonizing in pain from colon cancer.
Now some of you might be angry at me for bringing this up at such a delicate time. I believe Mrs Aquino would have it no other way. She herself has actually linked her personal pain with the country’s current suffering.
On her sickbed, a month after surgery, she sent over a message during the June 10, 2009 rally to mark Independence Day. She could have just stayed silent and everyone would have understood.
But no, her grandson Kiko – symbolically representing the next generation – read out his lola’s (grandma’s) brief message saying: “Over the years, I have learned to endure pain and sadness.”
“But perhaps, there is nothing that causes me greater pain than to see our people betrayed again and again by those they have elected to lead and serve them. To those of us who fought long and hard to restore our democracy, the pain deepens at the thought that all our gains have so quickly been eroded.”
She lashed out at “the shameful abuses of the powerful that seek to destroy our sacred laws.”
Perhaps Mrs Arroyo’s spin doctors might sniff that between housewife Aquino and the economist Arroyo, the latter has more accomplishments as president such as the highest GDP growth in decades.
Mrs Aquino did have her failings as president, such as a watered down agrarian reform law that benefited her family and her inability to wield the vast powers of a revolutionary government to reform democracy.
But one thing Mrs Aquino has done is to set a gold standard of behavior for the presidency. She has given the average Filipino the highly subversive notion that all Philippine presidents and politicians must be accountable to the people for their actions.
That idea, I believe, is the biggest security threat to the Arroyo administration.

The presidential palace goofed again today while still red-faced over the boo-boo it made on President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s breast implants.
Today, close aides declared July 27 a “non-working holiday” to celebrate “Iglesia ni Cristo Day”. Hours later, they corrected this saying it was a special “working” holiday”.
It’s become a habit for Mrs Arroyo to grant “non-working holidays” with abundance. Last month she issued six such proclamations to the cities of Dipolog, Manila, Laoag, Sagay City (twice even) and Rizal province.
So why can’t she use this presidential power for such a valued and powerful institution?
Someone must have realized that making July 27 a “non-working holiday” would blatantly violate the Constitution. July 27 happens to fall on the fourth Monday of July when the Constitution states: “The Congress shall convene once every year on the fourth Monday of July.”
Oops. They did it again.
I wonder why. And why no one bothered to check the calendar as part of CSW (complete staff work) which they take such special pride in. They must be cooking something really elaborate over there.

When the President’s national security adviser Norberto Gonzales starts talking about bombs we should all listen. You see, he is a self-confessed bomber himself.

I got introduced to Bert in 1987 when I started covering the rebel Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) of Nur Misuari. Through the years our source-reporter relationship blurred into something close to easy friendship.

That abruptly stopped after the presidential elections of 2004. Since then, he stopped taking my phone calls and answering my text messages.

The last time I interviewed him extensively was over a bombing – that of the Superferry just before the 2004 polls. He told me they could not find any evidence it was a terrorist undertaking because all evidence had sunk along with the ferry at sea. I believed him and duly reported that for South China Morning Post.

It was only over a year later, when the government and the military blamed the Superferry bombing on the Abu Sayyaf that I realized I was fooled by the national security adviser into believing the line that it was a kitchen fire that probably caused the explosion.

I now suspect the government had deliberately kept the terrorist angle under wraps because it might affect Mrs Arroyo’s presidential reelection.

Last Monday when I read that an improvised device exploded at the Office of the Ombudsman, I waited to see what the national security adviser would say.

Today, after two more unexploded bombs were found, he told radio station DZXL the bombs were a “normal” occurrence.

“Alam mo pagka malapit [na] ang SONA lahat ng uri ng grupo…siguro, may mga grupong nag-iisip kumuha ng attention. Normal naman yan na nangyayari sa ganitong panahon [You know, when the State of the Nation Address of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo approaches, all kinds of groups think up ways to grab attention. This is normal during these times.]

What he did not disclose, and I feel he should have disclosed, was that he was once involved in a bombing himself.

He was with this clandestine group called the “Light a fire movement” which set off fires and bombs during the Marcos regime.

On several occasions he told me that he took part in bombing a government building inside the walled city of Intramuros in Manila. I’m not sure now whether it was the Commission on Elections building or some other building. But I recall him very clearly telling me that while they were planting the bomb, “we were pissing in our pants.” He laughed at his terror then.

I half-believed him then. But his fellow bomber, Ed Olaguer, has since corroborated his story and in fact mentions Bert by name in an interview with veteran Inquirer writer Eric Caruncho ( see http://homepage.mac.com/dolaguer/lightafire/Personal106.html) Ed Olaguer, who was arrested and convicted, has even written a book about this.

So when authorities now say they are looking at the “usual suspects”, they of course don’t include the President’s own national security adviser whom they consider to be above suspicion.