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UK antiterror law allows 28-day detention(Philippine Daily Inquirer Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Inquirer columnist Amando Doronila Hit it on the head when he opined that the reason various opposition efforts to oust President Arroyo have failed is that they adopted the wrong tactic. He said the opposition has concentrated on demonstrations and rallies in Imperial Manila, in an effort to repeat Edsa, when the more effective way would be to bring their cause to the provinces, which have become the new fulcrum of power. Efforts to stir up the countryside against GMA, however, may also be futile, as she has courted the local executives from the beginning, and she has their loyalty. *** GMAs first local government secretary, Joey Lina, now president of the Manila Hotel, used to say that she was the friendliest President toward local officials. One of her first moves upon assuming office in 2001, he noted, was to return to them the Internal Revenue Allotments past administrations owed them. Over the years, she has crisscrossed the country, pouring projects into the provinces. In her latest State of the Nation Address, she bared an ambitious P1.1-trillion infrastructure program that she touted as the roadmap to prosperity. This consists of mega-projects, such as airports, ports, roads, roll-on roll-off projects, irrigation systems, etc., that will link the entire country over the next three years. Thus, the LGUs would not risk opposing her, as their constituents might punish them at the polls. *** At the NBN-4 TV program Equilibrium hosted by Presidential Agrarian Reform Adviser Heherson Alvarez last Saturday, he and his guest, Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, who sponsored the House justice committee impeachment report, analyzed the difference between the impeachment case against President Estrada and the latest move against GMA. Alvarez traced how he launched the complaint against Erap with just his own and Boy Herreras signature. After a while, the number of signatories rose to 23, and after the legislative recess, suddenly there were 76, catapulting the complaint direct to the Senate. They opined that the congressmen must have sensed the mood of their constituents and acted accordingly. By contrast, they said, the House opposition was only able to garner 32 votes against GMA because the majority knew impeachment had no support among their people. *** The LGUs proved time and again that they were GMAs bulwark of support. On July 8 last year, they turned out massively to counter the demands for her ouster. Recently it was also this group that worked hard to gather 10 million signatures behind the peoples initiative. In this connection, I find the argument of UP lawyer Rene Azurin of One Voice illogical. He opined that because officials of the Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines were behind the initiative campaign, the 10 million signatures are not the true voice of the people. But the people signed the petition and local election registrars verified their signatures. Moreover, they elected those officials. Is One Voice denigrating the fountainhead of all political authority? *** At British Amb. Peter Beckinghams lunch for women in media, a predictable topic was how UK authorities were able to foil the plan of two dozen terrorists to blow up a number of planes flying from London to the US. He cited indications that the plot could have caused more deaths than 9/11, since the idea was to blow up the planes over the US continent. I was impressed not only by the foiling of the plot, but also the speedy prosecution of some of the terrorists. Beckingham stressed, perhaps by way of lamenting that our Senate still has not passed the antiterrorism bill, that British law allows authorities up to 28 days to detain a terrorist suspect without charge. It used to be allowed up to 14 days only, but the period was lengthened following last years London bombings. In the land where the rights of man have been held sacred for 1,000 years, the safety of its citizens has become the most basic right. *** But what we media women found most interesting was the envoys info that the big boss of Britains security service, MI5, is a 58-year-old career official with an extroverted personality, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller. Married to a former army officer and moral philosophy lecturer-turned-carpenter, who provided her with five foster children from a previous marriage, UKs first line of defense against al-Qaida still cooks a roast dinner for them every Sunday. Actually Dame Eliza is the second woman to head MI5, the first being Dame Stella Rimington, who also sprang from the ranks. *** UKs top spy has a pedigreed background. The daughter of Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller, who served as chancellor in the Douglas-Home government, she attended the exclusive Benenden public school in Kent where she was a contemporary of Princess Anne. She went on to Oxford University, where it was believed MI5 first attempted to recruit her. After three years of teaching English there, she joined MI5 in 1974 at the height of the Cold War. Quickly graduating from typing transcripts of bugged phone conversations to a full-fledged spycatcher, Dame Eliza became a counter-terrorism expert. She was deeply involved in the Lockerbie investigation and MI5s Irish counter-terrorism branch. In 1997 she became the deputy director-general, and when its chief, Sir Stephen Lander, retired in 2002, she became the natural choice to succeed him. *** For those wishing to attend the high-caliber international conference on the life and work of Jesuit philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, registration begins at 4:30 p.m. today at Escaler Hall, Ateneo University. Todays opening ceremonies start at 6 p.m., with an invocation by Bishop Honesto Ongtioco, D.D., followed by the opening remarks of Ateneo president Bienvenido Nebres, S.J., and the introduction of the conference theme by Fr. Georg Ziselsberger, SVD, chair of the organizing committee. Copyright 2006 Philippine Daily Inquirer. Source : Financial Times Information Limited (Trademark) |