A4
Opinion
MONDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2017
Adelle Chua, Editor
EDITORIAL
T
No longer somebody else’s problem
HERE was a time we could be complacent and think that terrorism was somebody else’s problem. Of course, there were many bandits in the jungles of Mindanao who kidnapped people—mostly foreigners—in exchange for millions of dollars in ransom, but these repugnant crimes were committed away from urban centers and far from Metro Manila. Except for the occasional attack—the Rizal Day bombing of December 2000 comes to mind—we felt safe and insulated from the senseless violence instigated by terrorist groups such as the Islamic State, also known as ISIS. We shook our heads as Islamic extremists sowed terror in Paris, London, New York and other world capitals and thanked the stars that the terrorists took no notice of us. But the May 23 attack on Marawi City, the biggest Muslim urban center in the Philippines, changed all that. Local terrorist groups acting on behalf of ISIS sought to establish a caliphate beginning with
the capital of Lanao del Sur province and overran the city. The siege to retake Marawi continues into its fifth month, with a group of holdouts, estimated at 40 to 50, still keeping an undetermined number of civilians hostage. Now comes the news that a Filipino jihadist, Russel Salic, was involved in a planned attack in New York City in 2016
during the holy fasting month of Ramadan. The 2015 attack on the Bataclan concert hall in Paris and another on the metro in Belgium the following year served as inspiration for the planned killings in New York. Multiple locations including New York’s subway, Times Square and some concert venues were identified as targets in the plot that was foiled by an undercover FBI agent, US authorities announced last week. In Manila, the United States embassy confirmed that Salic, a doctor, was arrested in April 2017 in the Philippines after he and two other nationalities allegedly plotted attacks on New York City during the summer of 2016 in support of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham. The attacks were thwarted with the help of an undercover FBI agent posing as an IS supporter who communicated with the three plotters. Salic is awaiting extradition to the United States. US prosecutors said he sent $423 to
fund the New York attacks and promised to send more before he was arrested. The amount may sound trivial, but the death and destruction it might have wrought is not. The US Justice Department said over the weekend that Salic had boasted that his country was “a breeding ground for terrorists.” A Justice Department statement quoted messages sent by Salic to others involved in the plot in which he described terror laws in the Philippines as “not strict” in comparison to countries such as Australia and the UK. “Terrorists from all over the world usually come here as a breeding ground for terrorists ... hahahaha... But no worry here in Philippines. They dont care bout IS ... Only in west,” he added. Clearly, extremist terrorism is no longer somebody else’s problem. It is high time that the authorities, as well as the public, act accordingly.
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own opinion” as if he were uttering some sublime truth. The forming of opinion is an inevitable consequence of the fact that human thought is reflective, discursive and that we progress in knowing by the act of predication. But those who make the claim in this fashion apparently also make the claim that their “entitlement” closes them off to revision. The full claim therefore goes: “I am entitled to my own opinion, and therefore it is none of your business to show that I am wrong.” This is irrational, and one who doggedly stands by this position stakes a right to be irrational! Hitler’s irrationality—that infected a considerable number of his party-mates—was that the German race was superior and that the Jews were diluting its superiority.
WE CHECKED in at a Kaohsiung hotel perched on the verdant hills of this port city-cum-industrial complex, just an hour and 20 minutes from Naia, or 35 minutes to either Laoag or Lal-lo in Cagayan, if we only had direct flights. This was my third time to sleep overnight in this hotel, which is owned by a huge Taiwanese company with a diversified investment portfolio. We were on an investment mission along with businessmen from the Philippines, and the hotel was nearest to our confreres. What I noted was the huge drop in visitor arrivals since I first came in September or October last year. The hotel is a huge complex, with an entertainment complex, water sports facilities, a duty-free and outlet shopping mall, a “Kaohsiung Eye,” as one of my companions noted, similar as the huge ferris wheel atop it was to the famed London Eye. The reason for the continuing drop in visitor arrivals was the “drought” from China. Taiwan tourism had been quite reliant on millions of tourists coming from the mainland, aided by direct flights from various Chinese cities and a very reliable transportation system that connects to every spot in this island of a mere 11 million square miles (that’s about the whole of Luzon minus Quezon and the Bicol region). Kaohsiung is one of the largest ports in the world, which is why the Taiwanese heavy industry complex is located here and its environs. While the rest of Southeast Asia except Singapore was into small and inefficient ports, Taiwan embarked on constructing a massive port in its southern tip, rivaling those of the US and Japan. The foresight has paid off, as many investors, domestic and foreign, or partnerships thereof have established their operations here. The city is not really for tourists as much as it is for business travellers, but because of its history and proximity to the mainland, it has begun to attract a sizable number of tourists as well, until recently.
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Am I entitled to my opinion? ONE popular superstition that has been thought to be a necessary element of democracy is that everyone is entitled to his own opinion. And it is thought to be one of the shining moments in the struggle for freedom when one famous man is recorded to have said: “I may not agree with you but I shall defend your right to say it.” All of these—freedom of thought and opinion, freedom of speech and of the press (which, today, bloggers claim for themselves) are thought to be self-evident and beyond dispute. But I do not agree, and I shall take the unpopular position of disputing this claim. I find
two terms of the proposition particularly troublesome and in need of clarification: “entitled” and “opinion”! In Bernard Lonergan’s highly commendable account of insight, having an opinion is advancing a proposition despite the fact that some relevant questions remain that do not allow for certainty about it. “Given climate change and all other man-made catastrophes, humankind has only one hundred years more to go.” That is an example of an opinion, because scientists, climatologists, anthropologists and observers of the human condition do have questions that do not allow such a proposition to be ranked as a certainty. It is only when the “conditions” for the truth of a proposition have been fulfilled and no further
relevant supposed questions to be busy remain that w i t h . ” one moves When one Those from “I or the other who make think…I e nt a i l m e nt believe” to “I or prediction the claim in know…I am fails the this fashion sure.” test of apparently For those in verification the analytic or remains also make tradition, unver if ied, the claim e v e r y P is an prop osit ion opinion— that their “P” has and, for ‘entitlement’ “entailments” that reason, (on the one vulnerable, closes them off hand) and and subject to revision. “predictions” to revision. (on the So far all other). “I that I have am suffering advanced do from depression” entails not come from law books. the proposition “I am not There are no constitutional interested in things that provisions enunciating normally interest me” and them. They are matters of makes the prediction “I will rationality—the way people not be focused on what I am think and conditions for using
the predicate “rational.” One forms opinions. This much is certain, and that one is entitled to form opinions, there is likewise no doubt. Many of the world’s revolutionary discoveries and inventions started as “gut-feelings,” hints, guesses even—opinions! But to be rational, one holds the opinion conceding that one might be wrong. One grants the possibility that it can be demonstrated that one’s reasons for advancing a proposition are not good, or that the entailments and predictions of what one holds have not and do not come to pass. In other words, rationality demands that whoever advances an opinion does so with the openness to revision. That is just the trouble when someone pompously asserts “I am entitled to my
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