Leaders

Posted on June 29, 2011 by Maria Ressa

Maureen Dowd wrote a really nice, provocative piece the other day – WHY IS HE BI? (SIGH).

I’ve been thinking about leadership for a very long time. These are the sentences that resonate the most for me: “It’s not enough to understand how everybody in the room thinks. You have to decide which ones in the room are right, and stand with them. A leader is not a mediator or an umpire or a convener or a facilitator.”

Those same words could apply to many Filipino leaders, including President “Noynoy” Aquino. No one doubts his values nor his intentions. They just want him to make a decision. Unlike US President Obama, he’s not facing re-election. Mr. Aquino said he won’t run for office again, and he can’t. The Constitution limits the President to one term. I suppose that’s why Filipinos’ hopes are so high that he can and will make the right decisions. Now he just has to tackle the big problems, and take a stand! (Let his popularity ratings be whittled down by substantive decisions that lead to progress rather than trivial matters that degrade his ability to lead).

It’s hard to be a leader. Every decision you make sets policy. Every decision could potentially make you enemies. So if you don’t like that, don’t be a leader. To be a good one, you need to have not just vision, an inner voice that points the way, but most importantly, the courage to make a choice – not just for yourself but for the group you lead. Indecision is the worst trait for a leader.

Indonesian President Bambang Yudhoyono at Istana, Jakarta, Indonesia

In the past few weeks, I’ve spoken to many leaders. Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has taken a firm strategic stand on terrorism that’s put both him and his family in harm’s way. Last year, less than a month before it was supposed to be executed, police discovered an assassination plot against him by the Jemaah Islamiyah network. It involved two suicide bombers attacking his convoy outside his home. Police say when they found the safe-house, the explosives and vehicles were there – as well as the suicide bomber!

When I spoke with him last week, he had the most succinct, strategic vision I have heard for fighting this prolonged, generational battle against terrorism. It seems the assassination plot by the JI network only solidified his vision and courage to fight – not for himself or his family, but for the future of the country with the world’s largest Muslim population.

Former President (now Congresswoman) Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Manila, Philippines

A week earlier, former Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo sat with me and gathered her former cabinet officials in charge of security for a conversation at her home. As she pointed out, she recognized the dangers of terrorism and was the first leader to call US President George Bush when 9/11 happened a decade ago. She spoke about how she felt when the MOA-AD collapsed and the difficulties her administration faced dealing with what is largely a poverty-driven problem of terrorism (unlike Indonesia, which is ideologically driven).

In evaluating today’s administration, she had this to say: “It’s really unfortunate that they’re putting so much emphasis on persecuting the past administration when you have problems of FDI [foreign direct investment] reduced to half of what it was, unemployment going up, even the corruption index is worsening. There is a real governance problem today.” (She has since stated these views publicly, eliciting a reaction from the Aquino camp).

MILF Chief Negotiator Mohagher Iqbal, Camp Darapanan, Mindanao

Shortly before meeting Congresswoman Arroyo, I spent time with the Chief Negotiator of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, Mohagher Iqbal, in the MILF’s Camp Darapanan in Mindanao. He seems outwardly strong, principled – and pragmatic. After all, he has been negotiating for peace for his people for 14 years.

On negotiating with President Aquino’s government, he said: “There is some hope, but objectively speaking, I am neither optimistic or pessimistic.” It’s understandable after more than a decade of negotiations and a scuttled MOA-AD in 2008. From his point of view, the Philippine government has betrayed every agreement it’s made with the Moro people.

He answered questions in a straightforward manner, even if they were pointed, particularly about the MILF’s links to Jemaah Islamiyah: “Sometimes you cannot choose your friends. I am not saying that some elements of the JI were not in Mindanao. We have no organizational link with them. We have nothing to gain.”

He spoke about the root causes of our nation’s problems. “The problem in the Philippines,” he said, “is the system. If you examine the rules and regulations, they’re good, but they’re not implemented. Instead we have pakikisama, utang na loob.” I couldn’t agree more. It’s actually our lack of systems that create failing or failed institutions.

Finally, there are our corporate leaders who push change even if governments can’t seem to do so fast enough. After Mindanao, it was a joy to visit the home of Jaime and Lizzie Zobel de Ayala in Calatagan. It was a rejuvenating day of conversation with leaders who are moving forward, setting agendas, not waiting for governments – or anyone else for that matter – to set the direction. Rodrigo Veloso, the Brazilian founder and CEO of O.N.E. Coconut Water, was so enthusiastic about the Philippines and its potential growth. He compared us to Brazil right before it took off. He gushed about our natural resources and talked about how the coconut in Almond Joy chocolate bars and all Hershey’s bars come from a factory in the Philippines. Just being around him lifted my spirits.

Sheila Marcelo, NY-based founder and CEO of care.com, along with True Value’s Gianna Montinola (who’s also on the board of trustees of Far Eastern University) discussed the future of our country poolside, focusing on development and education as key concerns. Leslye Arsht, former undersecretary of US Dept of Defense and former Reagan press secretary, talked about the year she lived in Afghanistan trying to build schools and help resuscitate their educational system – the real nuts and bolts of rebuilding a society that’s still in conflict with a focus on the future. And there is budding leader-to-be Mariana, Lizzie and Jaime’s daughter, who’s just graduated from Harvard and who did her thesis on the RH bill.

Leaders set their own rhythms. They listen to others but only to check their vision, to check the compass and the tide. Some choose to go against the tide. Others use it to speed them along. The one thing leaders don’t do is stay quiet. In order to lead, you have to be clear where you want to go. You have to state where you stand and why people should follow you. You have to be agile – to have the humility to admit when you’re wrong and change direction. Adapt. You have to have vision and the courage to engage and persuade – to push through no matter what.

Key to all of it is courage – the courage to imagine the world beyond what you see; the courage to fail (because that’s what you risk in every decision you make); and the courage to risk your personal and professional life to make your vision a reality.

I have to go back to writing about terrorists again now. It’s been fun. Look for the leader in you, and in your area of influence, make your vision a reality. Happy flying!

Posted in Leadership, Living Life, Politics | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 22 Comments

Bali Bomber Umar Patek’s Journey to Meet bin Laden

Posted on June 22, 2011 by Maria Ressa

More details surfacing about Indonesian Umar Patek’s activities:

1. He told authorities he married his Filipina wife, Ruqoyah Binti Husen Luceno, in 1998. She was a teacher at a “primary school madrassah.” She was arrested with him in January this year in the same town where bin Laden was killed – Abbottabad, Pakistan.

2. Top Indonesian officials said Patek was trying to meet bin Laden. One US source says the meeting happened. A well-placed US military source agrees. Still, no other nations who have access to Patek have verified that claim. But if true, this has interesting implications for the coming months. (See below).

3. Patek was in the Philippines from 2002 to 2009. In June, 2009, he and his wife went from Sabah, Malaysia to Kalimantan in Indonesia by ship. They went on to Surabaya and on to Jakarta by bus.

4. On Aug. 20, 2010, they boarded a flight, did a transit stop in Bangkok, and arrived in Lahore, Pakistan.

5. They were arrested about 5 months later after a tip from the CIA. Pakistani authorities were led to Patek after they trailed a known Al-Qaeda operative.

Implications:

It seems clear that the old JI network has regenerated and had more plots in the works. In 2009, Dulmatin and Abu Bakar Ba’asyir raised money, recruited for and organized a training camp in Aceh, which was discovered by Indonesian authorities in Feb. 2010.

The path there began with the Ritz-Carlton/JW Marriott bombings in 2009. The JI network has evolved. Many of its members had by now joined the latest Ba’asyir reincarnation – a group he named Jemaah Ansharut Tauhid or JAT in 2008.

The bombs in 2009 were created by Noordin’s JI faction (now apparently working with JAT), and they had several plots in the works, including one to assassinate Indonesian President Bambang Yudhoyono.

Authorities discovered – and foiled – that plot less than a month before it was supposed to have been carried out. They found the vehicle and explosives, say intelligence sources. According to another, the suicide bomber was already in Jakarta.

“They intended to do the attack in September,” Gen. Tito Karnavian, former head of Densus 88 and now the head of operations for the National Counterterrorism Agency. “They also had another plan after that – to attack the American Embassy. It was found in the laptop of Noordin M. Top.”

All this was happening while Dulmatin and Ba’asyir were setting up the Aceh training camp, which intelligence officials say was supposed to train JAT members for Mumbai style commando attacks. (The Mumbai attacks killed 165 people in 2008).

Umar Patek arrived in Indonesia from the southern Philippines in June 2009. Intelligence reports say he stayed with Dulmatin, who helped arrange his trip to Pakistan. (Three months after Patek left Indonesia, Dulmatin was killed in a police raid in Pamulang, Banten).

In 2011, Indonesian police dealt with more attacks of less intensity: the book bombs in March, which led them to the JAT/JI network behind a bomb plot during Easter weekend and others. Each discovery has led to more arrests and convictions.

Increased activity is also happening in the southern Philippines, where US and Philippine intelligence report between 10-12 JI members entered the country soon after the death of bin Laden.

In the past few months, hostels and guesthouses in Basilan have been hit by improvised explosive devices (IED’s). Around 10:30 this morning, another explosion happened in Tulay, Jolo in Sulu, killing at least four people, according to Philippine intelligence sources.

The terror network has not only regenerated, it seems to have set plots in motion. Patek’s trip to see Bin Laden, say some intelligence sources, may have been an effort to green-light another upcoming plot.

A top Indonesian official told me: “We are quite surprised with the resilience of this movement because amidst quite intense operations and raids by us, it still survives and is able to launch a well-planned attack.”

I’ll be speaking with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Friday. He is the last interview for my book, which will chart the cycles of birth, degradation and regeneration of the terror networks in Southeast Asia.

Posted in Journalism, Politics, Terrorism | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

A Regional Terrorism Crackdown?

Posted on June 17, 2011 by Maria Ressa

Something is going on in Southeast Asia that has authorities on high alert. In the past few weeks, there have been arrests and operations in Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines.

When my plane from Manila landed in Singapore on Thursday, passengers were asked to go through an extra set of screening measures. Authorities were looking at laptops and electronics in particular. I also noticed extra security around Changi airport and boarding checks of buses coming in and out.

This comes two days after the US State Department updated its travel warning to the Philippines.

The Philippine intelligence report which may have prompted the raised warning came from a single source which stated that Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) leader Marwan along with leaders of the Abu Sayyaf sent a team of four UTG (Urban Terrorist Group) to Manila to carry out bombing operations. It states they will be joined by 5 members of the Rajah Solaiman Movement (RSM).

JI, ASG and RSM’s last collaborations included the Valentine’s Day bombing in the capital in 2005 and the Superferry bombing in 2004, the region’s worst maritime terrorist attack which killed 116 people. Since then, however, the RSM has been largely degraded.


JI leader Marwan aka Zulkifli bin Hir comes from a family of jihadists. His brother was arrested in the US during the initial stages of the global crackdown. A Malaysian national, he is also a leader of Kumpulan Mujahidin Malaysia (KMM) another JI affiliate group largely dismantled by Malaysian authorities.

Intelligence reports from the Philippines and the US detail the movements of JI members to and from the Philippines, including the arrival of 10-12 JI members after the death of Osama bin Laden. They are allegedly from Indonesia but travelled through Malaysia before arriving in Jolo.

In Indonesia Thursday, police were also on high alert after the court sentencing of Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Ba’asyir, the former leader of Jemaah Islamiyah and its new reincarnation, Jemaah Ansharut Tauhid (JAT). Ba’asyir splintered from JI after an internal dispute, took the network behind JI’s most violent attacks and established JAT in 2008. In 2010, authorities dismantled a training camp in Aceh set up by Ba’asyir and JI leader Dulmatin (who had been operating in the Philippines from 2003-2009). Ba’asyir was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Terrorist groups are evolving and much like Pakistani groups working with Al-Qaeda, they mirror the global dynamics. In Pakistan, Harkat-ul-Unsar became Harkat-ul-Mujahideen which became Jaish-e-Mohammed. In Indonesia, Darul Islam evolved into Jemaah Islamiyah which is now Jemaah Ansharut Tauhid. Same network. Same ideology.

Individual people may change, but what’s important is to keep track of the social network behind the group and key hubs like Ba’asyir. Although JAT is an above-ground group, its clandestine operations led to Ba’asyir’s conviction. The group has been linked to recent attacks and foiled plots.

The jihadi virus is resilient (see Time interview). We have to keep track of its mutations.

Posted in Terrorism | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Living in the Moment

Posted on May 21, 2011 by Maria Ressa

Basilan, March 16, 2011

One of the things I love about being a reporter is when you land in a new city, you’re forced to really live in the moment, particularly if you’ve never been there before. All your senses are alive because it’s new. Your heart throbs because not only are you on deadline, you have a whole society to explore and learn.

As the years went by, that feeling of discovery and truly being alive subsided because I got to know the cities I reported from – where to stay, where to eat, where to hang out, where to find the news. They became part of my habit so I started tuning out.

That’s why travelling and physically moving house every now and then is essential. Too often, as we get older, we stop really looking, stop really listening, stop living in the moment. We get in the car. We drive to work. We barely look at the people we run into. We’re barely alive because we’re thinking of future tasks and future deadlines.

As we get older, life adds layers to our core selves – some necessary, some not; some materialistic, some metaphysical. Your house, your car, your furniture, your clothes – signs of how you look at yourself and how the world looks at you. The layers you add to protect yourself from betrayal, from intrusions into your private life, from hurt – well, somehow we learn to add those layers to protect ourselves. Anyone who handles power or authority has to deliver bad news, play corporate games — and as we get older, you just can’t allow yourself to feel everything you felt when you were young.

But why not?

That’s part of the reason I moved to Singapore. I decided to go back to basics and try to peel away some of those layers. I wanted to listen to myself. No other agenda but to learn and to live in the moment.

That means stripping out the noise. So no high-priced condominium which insulates you from the the wear and tear of daily life. I decided to do something I’d wanted to do for years: live in an HDB flat. HDB stands for housing development board – it’s public-subsidized housing, and more than 80% of Singaporeans live in HDB flats. I wanted to see how Singaporeans live.

Night market near my flat

I didn’t get a car. I took public transportation – MRT, buses – so efficient, and riding them made me realize how I missed watching people. Let’s face it – spending 99% of your time inside the ABS-CBN compound doesn’t allow you much people watching time. Everyone knows you and you know them, particularly if you’re the boss.

I missed the kindness of strangers – like when I saw 6 people give up their seats to older folks inside the mrt. It makes you feel good about the human race. (And made me think that Singapore’s public service ads plastered everywhere work).

There’s a wonderful sense of community. Outside my building is a central area built into the plan for public housing – a kid’s playground, an exercise area, a basketball court, an open circular area for barbecues. It is a vibrant community – multicultural because every building represents the racial breakdown – 75% Chinese, 14% Malay, 9% Indian, the rest Eurasians and others.

For nearly two weeks, I was vibrantly alive as I counted how many stops to get off, looked around new areas and discovered new places. Then as I developed a routine, I felt myself starting to slip into the past or the future – my attention was no longer in the moment. When I recognized it, I thought that’s part of life. We discount what we know.

Nothing beats the thrill of living in the moment. Once you get there, it affects everything else and reminds you why you want to stay there. It allows you to put your life in perspective – become more self-aware – and to pay tribute to the people and the places that are important to you.

When I returned to my apartment in Manila, everything felt new. I felt different, and my relationships benefitted from that. I was no longer taking things for granted. I was energized – looking at the world through fresh eyes.

Last February, I wrote about how reunions with loved ones can rejuvenate. Travel and staying in the moment is another way of doing that. Again, one of my very favorite quotes from TS Eliot: “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”

That, folks, is the story of our lives!

Posted in Living Life, Random Musings | Tagged | 20 Comments

Is the Internet Making You Dumber?

Posted on May 17, 2011 by Maria Ressa

Lots of books have been written about both the positive and negative effects of the internet on our minds and the types of people we are becoming. For balanced, opposing views, I’d recommend Clay Shirky’s Cognitive Surplus and Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows.

One of the reasons I really wanted to take time off to write a book was to see for myself whether I still could!

What I noticed was that the more I engaged on the Internet, the less I engaged in my own thoughts – particularly as we pushed ABS-CBN reporters onto social media like Twitter and Facebook. I could feel changes inside my own head. I respond faster – like muscle memory. I get the latest news and views, but I couldn’t seem to concentrate and focus as well as I used to.

Researchers say technology is literally changing and rewiring our brains – realigning the pathways to change the way we think. When your blackberry buzzes or your twitter tweets, it pulls your mind from whatever it’s doing. It also gives you a chemical buzz from dopamine – which apparently is highly addictive. We’ve become dopamine junkies!

That’s why twitter’s so addictive – and why you can spend hours on the internet and stand up feeling like you did something even though you didn’t.

It took me two to three months of strict twitter and facebook rationing to be able to rewire my brain and remind it to focus. I’m not where I used to be: intense concentration to write a script in 15 minutes or finish a book in a few hours. I’m working on it.

In our world today, we need both the ability to connect and engage through new technology and the ability to go inwards, focus and create. We’re inundated with information, and we need to cull and process. Otherwise, we skim the surface and recycle and retweet without adding any value, realigning the pathways of our brains to make us shallower human beings.

In the end, the limiting factor in our expanding world today is our human capacity to absorb and adapt.

Don’t forget: focus, think, write.

Posted in Internet, Living Life, Random Musings | Tagged , | 16 Comments