The 9/11 of the Philippines

The worst terrorist attack in Philippine history occurred on 27 February 2004. 116 Filipinos were killed by a bomb inside a television set planted by Redondo Cain Dellosa (aka Akmad Dellosa) on board the Aboitiz Transport System's SuperFerry 14. The explosion, which occurred as the ferry was sailing to Cagayan de Oro from Manila, is also considered as the world's deadliest terrorist attack on sea.

In concept, the notion that someone or some people deliberately set out to kill 116 Filipino men, women and children is chilling, moreso considering there were actually around 900 people on board SuperFerry 14. Yet the attack barely caused a ripple in Philippine society beyond the victims and their families, the Philippine government and military, and the ship's owners. Schools, stock exchanges and singles nights moved along without pause. Commuters continued to jampack ferries, buses and trains without a dissuading sense of fear that they were targets like their 116 late fellow citizens. The apparent fact that there was a group out there that was willing to kill us simply because we were living Filipinos never really dawned on the national consciousness.

These thoughts cross my mind as I try to figure out why the current Mumbai attacks appear to matter much more, given the history of Indian terrorist attacks with mass casualties. I had blogged earlier that the Mumbai attacks seemed less like a terrorist attack than a terrorist invasion, hence the greater fear and paralysis it has provoked in India. Had the attacks been a matter of one bomb or several bombs going off, as in the past, the same level of outrage and grief as today's will likely still be there. Yet the lasting trauma would have been less deep than that now caused by the prolonged paralysis in Mumbai -- repeated images of pillaged national landmarks bombarding viewers glued to their TV screens, the mounting hours spent by the city's panicked residents trying to account for all of their family and friends, the heightened sense of urgency left by closed schools and businesses and the official admonitions that it simply isn't safe to leave your home. More than the Bali, Madrid or London bombings, the Mumbai attacks are the closest approximation to the 9/11 attacks the world has seen in seven years.

Our 116 murdered is a horrific enough number, but the SuperFerry 14 bombing was, thankfully, ultimately a failure as a meaningful terrorist outrage. Crucially, it was logistically impossible for the SuperFerry 14 attack to cripple the Filipino way of life for even a short period of time. The plan was to blow up a ship out on the open sea, beyond sight of masses of people or TV cameras, and without any flair that would readily distinguish the explosion from that coming from an overheated boiler. As a result, it took months before the investigators would definitively conclude that it was indeed a bomb, and not a mechanical kink, that sunk the SuperFerry 14. By that time, the incident was long past immediacy, long past panic.

We have yet to see our 9/11, and there is no reason to discount that it won't happen to us. It is discomfitting to keep these thoughts, yet they are useful not only for our national security planners tasked with preventing such incidents, but also for us common folk if and when such an attack happens. Volume of casualties is a less effective measure on the lasting impact of a terrorist incident than the degree with which the manner of the attack instills fear in our society. It is through the exploitation of such fear that reactionary forces and ideas take root and radically alter our freedoms, perpetuating the impact sought by the terrorists well beyond their desire. Upon that day, it may be difficult to resist the normal impulse of anger and fear, yet it is essential to keep that sober thought if even, for the moment, at the back of our minds.