As of this writing, a bomb exploded at Glorietta 2 in Makati City, sowing fear and confusion deep in the heart of an unsuspecting metropolis.
According to reports, at least four people have died and more than 70 injured. The whole lobby of Glorietta 2, including the sky bridge which I used to pass by whenever me and the ODDERs would watch a movie inside the mall has collapsed and sustained very heavy damage. The entire Glorietta Mall was closed for security reasons, while the rest of Manila is now declared in a state of red alert.
I was in Gilmore when the news exploded. It was splashed on a 22-inch flatscreen Samsung LCD that was being displayed in the lobby of the Gilmore IT Center. Everyone who was in the lobby huddled together in front of the screen as images upon images of a damaged Glorietta 2 was seen above from the Sky Chopper. It was a breaking news indeed and the scene around the IT lobby, with people pointing fingers at the terrorists made the news more apocalyptic.
Elsewhere around the world, Karachi also suffered from a huge bomb explosion being perpetuated by its terrorists. There was a mass rally to welcome the return of a former prime minister and it was greeted by a strewn of mutilated bodies and pools of blood and body parts as the bomb exploded when Benazir Bhutto was leading her political party's early evening march.
Being the opposition, they blamed the government for it. The government of Pervez Musharraf in return blamed the terrorist for the suicide bombing.
Looking at both explosions, it's easy to find a connection; a happy trail which will make us think the reason why such spate of violence happen. In Pakistan, it was very clear that the responsible for the blast were none other but the terrorist. However, it seems like their security forces responded too late to prevent such terror from taking place. In Glorietta, initial reports reveal that it was a gas pipe leakage that triggered the explosion. I would certainly cross my fingers hoping that it was caused by human error and not by a terror organization like Abu Sayaff.
But knowing our cyberpunk-inspired government, they would keep the real score about the mall explosion. They fear that the truth might hurt them more than the image of the country, that claims to have been ridden of terrorist.
What's done is done and for the days and weeks to come, we will feel the effects of the explosion in our daily lives:
more checkpoints along main roads at night;
malls with less people even on balmy weekends;
stock market and peso exchange dipping because of the perception that the country is unsafe to do business.
long and terribly hassle-ful queues at MRT and LRT stations;
days wrapped in fear and anxiety thinking when the "terrorist" would strike next.
But, if there is one entity that will benefit more from this nerve-wrecking explosion, it is not the terrorist organizations or the stupid guy or company that installed the gas works,
it is the Administration.
The effects I mentioned above, may only be a short-term implications from such an explosion. However, the government, being attacked simultaneously from multi-level fronts about issues ranging from ZTE-NBN deal, the congressmen payoffs, the not-so-secret war between GMA and JDV, the different corruption charges slapped at government officials by different pressure groups; what happened in Glorietta this afternoon would provide the GMA administration their much needed reprieve.
It will give them time and space to plan their defense and protect itself from imploding from the different scandals.
As the news develops and more story angles come into light (expect the police to reveal more and more leads as to the cause of the explosion to confuse everyone but themselves), the media's eyes will turn 360 degrees left and right away from the real problem, the real bane of us all.
If I know, such bomb explosion was simply engineered in order for everyone to keep their eyes distracted from the government's previously caught insidious activities.
According to reports, at least four people have died and more than 70 injured. The whole lobby of Glorietta 2, including the sky bridge which I used to pass by whenever me and the ODDERs would watch a movie inside the mall has collapsed and sustained very heavy damage. The entire Glorietta Mall was closed for security reasons, while the rest of Manila is now declared in a state of red alert.
I was in Gilmore when the news exploded. It was splashed on a 22-inch flatscreen Samsung LCD that was being displayed in the lobby of the Gilmore IT Center. Everyone who was in the lobby huddled together in front of the screen as images upon images of a damaged Glorietta 2 was seen above from the Sky Chopper. It was a breaking news indeed and the scene around the IT lobby, with people pointing fingers at the terrorists made the news more apocalyptic.
Elsewhere around the world, Karachi also suffered from a huge bomb explosion being perpetuated by its terrorists. There was a mass rally to welcome the return of a former prime minister and it was greeted by a strewn of mutilated bodies and pools of blood and body parts as the bomb exploded when Benazir Bhutto was leading her political party's early evening march.
Being the opposition, they blamed the government for it. The government of Pervez Musharraf in return blamed the terrorist for the suicide bombing.
Looking at both explosions, it's easy to find a connection; a happy trail which will make us think the reason why such spate of violence happen. In Pakistan, it was very clear that the responsible for the blast were none other but the terrorist. However, it seems like their security forces responded too late to prevent such terror from taking place. In Glorietta, initial reports reveal that it was a gas pipe leakage that triggered the explosion. I would certainly cross my fingers hoping that it was caused by human error and not by a terror organization like Abu Sayaff.
But knowing our cyberpunk-inspired government, they would keep the real score about the mall explosion. They fear that the truth might hurt them more than the image of the country, that claims to have been ridden of terrorist.
What's done is done and for the days and weeks to come, we will feel the effects of the explosion in our daily lives:
more checkpoints along main roads at night;
malls with less people even on balmy weekends;
stock market and peso exchange dipping because of the perception that the country is unsafe to do business.
long and terribly hassle-ful queues at MRT and LRT stations;
days wrapped in fear and anxiety thinking when the "terrorist" would strike next.
But, if there is one entity that will benefit more from this nerve-wrecking explosion, it is not the terrorist organizations or the stupid guy or company that installed the gas works,
it is the Administration.
The effects I mentioned above, may only be a short-term implications from such an explosion. However, the government, being attacked simultaneously from multi-level fronts about issues ranging from ZTE-NBN deal, the congressmen payoffs, the not-so-secret war between GMA and JDV, the different corruption charges slapped at government officials by different pressure groups; what happened in Glorietta this afternoon would provide the GMA administration their much needed reprieve.
It will give them time and space to plan their defense and protect itself from imploding from the different scandals.
As the news develops and more story angles come into light (expect the police to reveal more and more leads as to the cause of the explosion to confuse everyone but themselves), the media's eyes will turn 360 degrees left and right away from the real problem, the real bane of us all.
If I know, such bomb explosion was simply engineered in order for everyone to keep their eyes distracted from the government's previously caught insidious activities.
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