Philippines Trip 2002

...Poverty reigns, and government programs are hampered by the huge bites foreign debt and corruption take from the budget. Faith in law and order is nonexistent. Reports of kidnappings in Manila-most are not reported because families would rather pay ransom than deal with the police-and firefights in the south have laid waste to the tourism industry.

...She (President Arroyo) seems comfortable with numbers, has faith in the certainty they suggest. Growth of 3.7% in 2001, she says, outperformed expectations. A drop in unemployment to less than 10%, she informs, is encouraging. By keeping a ceiling on spending, she believes her administration can chip away at the $4.4 billion budget deficit she inherited.

...This isn't just the usual rumormongering. The stakes are frighteningly high. Another EDSA (people's revolt) would be disastrous, no matter who took over. The country is struggling to emerge from the damage Estrada caused to Ramos' reforms at home and investor confidence abroad. Another People Power, and the nation's image could be downgraded from shaky to basket case.

"Last year not much could be done," says Aydee Yorac, chairman of the Presidential Commission on Good Government. Her point is that the first year of any presidency-or any public office in the Philippines, really-is consumed by paying back supporters. "This [2002] will be the test year."

...The 5,000 Philippine troops on Basilan are looking for the last 80 or so heavily armed members of the Muslim rebel gang known as Abu Sayyaf (meaning "Bearer of the Sword"), who are on the run with three hostages in tow somewhere inside a 75-sq-km patch. Stalking the rebels in jungle so dense that no light shines through the canopy of foliage, along jagged ridges often shrouded in fog, is like fighting in a dark closet with sunglasses on.

...officials in Manila consider it more a band of local thugs than a worldwide terrorism threat. Still, the group's brutal record of kidnapping-and beheading-foreigners as well as Filipinos (close to 100 murdered since 1991) makes it a legitimate target.

...The gravest terrorism threat may come less from Mindanao than from Manila, thought to be a prime hideaway for undetected al-Qaeda cells scattered throughout Southeast Asia. For several months Manila provided houseroom for Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing in 1993.