Malacañang said four days ago that the government has yet to receive “confirmed intelligence reports” that Filipinos are training with militants in Iraq.  According to Palace spokesman Edwin Lacierda, the AFP has not validated any information to this effect.

If this Malacañang explanation is true (which manifests its “laid-back” position and unfazed attitude on just about every issue), then our Intelligence Services must be failing our people – because their job is to track down every bit of information that comes their way about possible terroristic threats to Philippine national security and/or to our people’s safety and welfare.

The follow-ups by government of this kind of report about possible threats must be done ASAP and quietly without any fanfare.  However, any such efforts must be coordinated as comprehensively as possible due to the sensitive nature of the risks and collateral damage.  Because the Philippines has suffered so much and so long from militant jihadism, Muslim separatism, and Abu Sayyaf terrorism, we need not elaborate on what the possible dangers are emanating from the violent conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa today – since these events are too well-known, being on worldwide media almost daily.

… In his “Inside Al Qaeda:  Global Network of Terror” (2003), Dr. Rohan Gunaratna, Asia’s foremost expert on terrorism, reveals:  “To intervene successfully in conflicts where Muslims were affected, Al Qaeda established ideological, political, financial and military control over several Islamist terrorist groups.