Glorietta Bombing: Tragic but a bit suspicious

jhay — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:41:22 +0000

First of all, prayers are all I could offer to the families and friends of the victims of the Glorietta bombing.

I first heard about the bombing when some one who was with me in a meeting at the DLSU-D University Student Council office read out loud from a text message he just recieved from a friend that there was a bombing at the Glorietta. We first brushed off his pronouncement and even made jokes about it.

Until after the meeting, I checked out Inquirer.net and there it was, indeed a bomb has exploded in Glorietta. MLQ3 has a good round-up of first-hand blogger eyewitness accounts. It’s citizen-journalism at its peak again.

Update: Here’s a video courtesy of Gambito of the scene after the bombing:

The latest body count are 9 dead and 100+ wounded.

Flak may be thrown at this blog, but I cannot help sharing the sentiments of notes from the peanut gallery, that there is something suspicious about this tragedy. Let me quote:

I cannot help but suspect that the government is creating terrible distractions to draw attention away from the latest Malacanang bribery scandal, where 190 congressmen and officials were handed out glossy bags of cash ranging from 200k-500k. With the heat on our Lady President, her circle has transformed into a bastion of denial, deadma, and absurdist reasoning: that those were early Christmas gifts, that it did not come from the government, that the Lady President did not know about it despite the fact that she attended the very same breakfast meeting where the cash was distributed like loot bags for a children’s party. And when she denies any knowledge of such cash disbursements, the implacation is that she is not in control (how can she not know?, ask many observers).

In the light of so many important issues that our government needs to address, this explosive sleight-of-hand – if it is what I think it is – is simply too cruel.

The following questions are still stuck in my mind;

Why was there no reports or warnings or intelligence alerts that we get to recieve every now and then during the height of the call for the GMA to resign and coup rumors to overthrow her administration?
The government’s intelligence units were so quick to issue warnings of terror alerts or coup attempts or plots to destabilize the government last year. But now that something horrible did happened, why is the government acting too calm and collected, it’s as equally disturbing as the bombing itself?
What happened to all that training and assistance, particularly anti-terror related training, exercises, assistance the AFP got from the US military?

Is this another ploy of the administration to distract the public from the recent wave of scandals that has once more ‘exploded’ into its face? Or is it a signal to all its opponents and critics that this administration would not go down without a fight? Or worse, it’s rehearsal of sorts for darker times to come. (read: pre-text for declaring martial law) I pray not.

Either way, it is not acceptable. It is downright inhuman, dastardly and utterly revolting.

Kung totoo nga talaga, p*t*ng in*!!! Garapal at masahol pa sa kampon ng kasamaan ang administrasyong ito.

The Four-eyed Journal » Tragedy

Glorietta Bombing: Tragic but a bit suspicious