Recto says the government has to confront local terror threats daily

By Jason de Asis

SENATE OFFICE, Manila, November 15, 2010-Sen. Ralph G. Recto said that the daily onslaught of crimes be it petty/small or organized are more dangerous that the Philippines will have to address to get respect for other nations to show that we are ready to face the more menacing terror threat on a global scale.

 

“The government has to confront the more ominous form of local terror threat which stokes fear in our people on a daily basis,” Recto said, adding that petty crimes are rising and also the organized ones.  

 

The senator also mentioned chaotic streets, fraternities, frat gangs, lobbing grenades, buses plunging into ravines and tourists being accosted not to be helped but mugged or assassinated have to be solved, explaining that the country was already in a brink of terror frenzy even before the actual threat of a terrorist attack became the new national distraction.

 

There’s never a week that someone’s vehicle is stolen at gunpoint or a precious life is taken via plain murder or recklessness on the streets and inside campuses. Recto pointed out.

 

In the past weeks, carjacking syndicates preyed on their victims with impunity, forcing families to go car-less after their vehicles were taken at gun point including that vehicles of a newspaper editor, a relative of top DFA official, TV-movie personalities and ordinary “John Does” were lost to daring day light car heists reminiscent of the Chicago heydays of mob gangs and bootleggers.

 

Recto said the threat of global terror should not be ignored the same with the threats of small crimes and organized syndicates wherein he furthered that the daily “terror threat” could also be a factor why the country only landed 97th out of the surveyed 169 countries that offer a high quality of life for its citizens.

 

A stable peace and order situation, a vigilant well-trained security force and a citizenry sure of their safety are the best defense against a deadly terror plot,” Recto, Senate Ways and Means chair and finance panel vice-chairman, said.

 

He called on concerned security agencies and other support government bodies to intensify current efforts to defeat local “terror” threats.

 

“If we fail to address these daily home grown urban terror threats, I'm afraid that we might have lost the momentum to participate in the big global fight against terrorism,” the senator from Batangas said. (Jason de Asis)