Tomorrow is the fifth anniversary of 9/11.  The occasion marks the day most of us will remember as a day of horror and infamy, with the shocking images of the twin towers of the World Trade Center collapsing and people falling to their deaths in pitiful attempts to escape the burning buildings.  For many of us who never saw Pearl Harbor or Hiroshima, 9/11, though slightly surreal if one looks back, is one event that will be the most vivid for most of us who saw it.

I remember I was watching television after a light dinner when I suddenly saw on CNN an airplane go crashing straight into a building in New York.  My first impulse was to call my daughter in New York.  Luckily, I was able to get through, and while I was talking to her, my daughter actually saw the second plane crash as I was watching it on TV.

After that, all lines were jumbled up and we could not get back to her.  But I was so happy to know that she was okay, although it became obvious to me that what had just happened was definitely not an accident.  Then another plane crashed into the Pentagon, while news followed that a fourth airline was hijacked and crashed into a field in Pennsylvania.

It sent chills down my spine after seeing the tragedy live on television.  The incident reverberated around the world.  It was almost surreal to see such an event unfold live on television with this modern age of technology, and to see it actually happening in a country like America.

My next impulse was to call up Mike Malinowski at the US Embassy, who was at the time the acting US Ambassador to the Philippines.  He was apparently in a function, but he called me back right away.  We talked briefly.  Mike was obviously shaken by 9/11 because, on one occasion after the day of that tragedy, he became emotional and was in tears as he recalled the time when he was the State Department's head of the counter-terrorism unit in Afghanistan, closely following Al-Qaeda movements.

As early as 1996, now retired CIA agent Michael Scheuer and FBI's counter-terrorism and Middle East unit head Robert Blitzer were able to identify a mosque in Sudan frequented by Osama bin Laden.  The mosque was actually an Al-Qaeda front, and the CIA saw that it was the perfect place to trap bin Laden.  Mike confirmed that CIA's Langley headquarters recommended a plan to Bill Clinton through his National Security Adviser Samuel Berger to take out bin Laden with "extreme prejudice."

Unfortunately, the whole of Washington was raging with the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and a harassed and sidetracked Clinton junked the CIA recommendation.  Mike Malinowski felt that had President Clinton followed through with the CIA recommendation, that single act of taking out Osama bin Laden could have probably set back subsequent terrorist plans, and maybe 9/11 could have been prevented.  This only goes to show how politics can distract a leader into making wrong decisions—which is probably what happened for a while with GMA with the threat of an impeachment.  But like they say, the rest, as we now know, is history.

Without a formal request from the Acting Ambassador, GMA's instinct to send elite troops to guard the US Embassy in Manila, and being one of the first heads of state to send her sympathy to George Bush obviously gained her a lot of points with the American president.  This probably established that special relationship they have today.  In all respects, the relationship between the US and this country has been relatively close and strong, except for that Angelo de la Cruz debacle in Iraq which for a while made the US give us the cold shoulder.

What is clear is that the United States will never make the whole world forget 9/11.  What happened five years ago was an attack in the very heart of America, where almost 3,000 lives perished with that one single act of terrorism.  George Bush continues to bang at this subject to this very day.  In fact, there will be a memorial service at the Union Church today arranged by the US Embassy.  I am told this memorial service will be duplicated all over the world in memory of all the victims of terrorism.  9/11 is America's nightmare, and like the Jews, they will never forget what has now been dubbed by many as a "Modern Day Holocaust."

The way things look, terrorism will be with us for many more years to come.  The uncovering of a terrorist plot to blow up jetliners from the United Kingdom is a grim reminder of this ever-present danger.  As a matter of fact, the recent plot sounds suspiciously similar to the 1995 "Bojinka plot" hatched by Al-Qaeda linked Ramzi Yousef, where several jetliners will be blown over the Pacific using liquid bombs.  As cleverly pointed out by former CNN Jakarta Bureau Chief Maria Ressa, 9/11 was hatched here in the Philippines, considering that Yousef had been going in and out of the country in 1994 and 1995.  Yousef was largely responsible for the PAL airline blowup killing a Japanese passenger.

The Philippines is an obvious terrorist target being a close ally of the US.  More than that however is the fact that this country, specifically Mindanao, is on the list as a potential terrorist enclave.  That's why when Filipinos travel abroad, they can be subjected to a lot of inconvenience during "random checks" because we have been given a "potential terrorist haven" tag by US authorities.

But the AFP's continued offensive against the Abu Sayyaf in Mindanao, and relentless operations to capture Abu Sayyaf chieftain Khadaffy Janjalani and Bali bombers Umar Patek and Dulmatin may just land an invite for GMA to Washington next year from George Bush himself when they see each other at the start of the Helsinki Summit today.  GMA is one of the lead speakers in the two-day Asia-Europe Meeting whose last day incidentally is tomorrow, the 5th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attack.

To this day, we are all dumbfounded why after five years since 9/11, with terrorism hanging over our heads and the presence of Dulmatin and Umar Patek confirmed in Mindanao, with the NPA tagged as a terrorist group by the US, with bombings in Zamboanga and Davao, the Super Ferry blast which Time magazine dubbed as Asia's worst since the 2002 Bali bombings, and the Valentine's Day bomb blast in Makati last year—our dear legislators have done nothing about the Anti-Terrorism bill.

Obviously, our dear senators and congressmen are distracted by so many investigations and searches for secret presidential bank accounts and other "important things" that they feel is more significant than the lives of Filipinos.  And just like what happened to Bill Clinton with the Monica Lewinsky scandal, we may just wake up one day with Osama bin Laden himself throwing a bomb in the middle of Metro Manila and killing hundreds of Filipinos.  And if that happens, the blood of these people will be on the hands of those who refuse to see the importance of a strong Anti-Terrorism bill.

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