US Embassy closed in Manila take two

MANILA, Dec. 6 (Xinhuanet) -- The US Embassy here along the Roxas Boulevard closed on Tuesday, shutting off its public services after receiving a bomb threat Monday night.
Due to "plausible threat information", public services at the US Embassy in Manila will be temporarily closed to the public beginning on Dec. 6, a statement on the US Embassy website said. ....
It reiterated a US State Department travel warning issued in March urging American citizens to be vigilant and aware of potential terrorist attacks against Americans, US or other Western interests in the Philippines.

As I mentioned earlier in my blog, we are far from Manila, and our major "insurgency" (to use the pc word) is the communists...and the CSMonitor has a nice article discussing why:

"..In the countryside, insurgents provide a brand of "revolutionary justice" in a society that often rides roughshod over the poor. "If someone steals your carabao [water buffalo], the police are unlikely to be able to do anything about it. But the NPA might," says Steven Ruud, director of the Asia Foundation in Manila....At its peak in the 1980s, the NPA commanded more than 25,000 troops and drew middle-class support for fighting former dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Its ranks have since dwindled to an estimated 8,000, and many observers are skeptical of claims of a renewed insurgency.
"There's no way that the NPA can challenge the Army, nor does it threaten to overthrow the government," says Scott Harrison, managing director of PSA, a security consultancy in Manila.
Security officials see little daylight between urban protesters and Communist insurgents in the countryside. Their antileft rhetoric has intensified in recent months as President Gloria Arroyo has faced calls to resign over alleged electoralfraud...

Unionists reject claims of communist subversion, while acknowledging support from left-wing organizations. They accuse the Army, in turn, of waging a dirty war in the name of national security. Much of their anger is directed at Army Gen. Jovito Palparan, a veteran counter-insurgency officer who was moved Sept. 1 to command the 7th infantry division in central Luzon.

Since then, according to Karapatan, a human-rights group based in Manila, 18 left-wing activists, including Luisita union leader Ricardo Ramos, have been murdered or abducted. Activists allege that General Palparan is behind the killings, a charge he dismisses as communist propaganda. "We have laws to follow, we aren't allowed to do that," he says.

At the Hacienda Luisita, which was sold in 1957 by its Spanish founders to the powerful Cojuangco family, calls for land to be redistributed to farmers have gone unanswered. Workers were given shares in a listed company in 1989 under a government scheme, but unionists say the dividends are meager and don't compensate for low wages and job insecurity.

Armed with a backhoe, Benvenido Capan, a retired gardener, plants a row of beans next to a tract of rotted sugar cane that went uncut this season.

Capan has low expectations. "The strikes are always the same. We ask and they don't give....
I wish we could own some land," he says.