Razon's methane-diesel fart

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
10/24/2007



Won’t you get a whiff of the residual smell of the methane and the diesel or bunker fuel if that were the real cause of the Glorietta 2 blast? If methane or LPG, as the latest official theory from the PNP chief goes, shouldn’t there be fire? If flammable furniture was absent then at least, burning and not just overturned cars? Sewers are porous, couldn’t have built up so much. No one smelled gas which is like rotten egg or sweet like burning alcohol, instead several experts detected the odor and components of one form of chemical explosive or another, C-4, gun powder or RDX, as the earlier testimonies went. Two army men (Esperon’s?) were also caught with a bagful of ordnance, to plant or to steal away?

The public got some education in chemical reactivity when two chemical engineering professors, Ernesto de la Cruz and Wilfredo Jose, faculty members and students of the U.P. engineering college said it was unlikely that a leak from the tank containing thousands of liters of diesel at the mall's basement caused the blast as diesel is not a volatile and will not explode as a liquid at any rate, it has to be in a gaseous state and vaporize by heating to 200 degrees centigrade before it can explode. That’s why diesel engines have a heating element that in older models, need to be activated for around ten seconds before the diesel engine can start. Razon’s theory does not have a scientific leg to stand on.

What is clear is the Glorietta blast momentarily shifted attention from the “bribery” scandal besetting Malacañang. The scandal has created rifts amongst Gloria’s highest officials, i.e. Puno versus Ermita, and her incompetence in handling the internal contradictions have kept the media and the public’s attention on the “bribery” issue even if that attention is divided to some degree with the Glorietta blast controversies. The shock and awe of the Glorietta blast and its attempt to create a terrorist scare backfired as Gloria and Bert Gonzales’ credibility is just so low that anything they say has the reverse effect. It is a definitive sign that Gloria can’t run themselves and the country anymore.

Government and traditional opposition leaders are banking on “foreign bomb experts”, i.e. American and Australian, to provide “independent” investigation. The memory of foreign cover up of a 2002 Davao incident compels me to denounce this attitude of dependency on foreign ”experts” who are not without their own agenda from their authorities. American Michael Meiring blasted himself assembling a bomb inside his Evergreen Hotel room in Davao City, to be used in faking terrorism, and the U.S. Embassy and F.B.I. swooped in, overriding the local authorities – the NBI and police – in the investigation – and whisked off Michael Meiring to the U.S. where he now resides in luxury.

Basic high school science and common sense, a keen awareness of human character and some help from impartial engineers like the U.P. professors and students, is all we need to get at the truth.

Obvioulsy, Senator Trillanes is capable of this and reached the true and correct assessment of the Glorietta blast earlier and with more certainty than all these others who are more eager to confirm the ever changing and shifting version of the government. If the government investigations were ever reliable then we would have no problems with investigations of the Impsa, Garci, Joc Joc scams, Operation Greenbase, the Mayuga report, Basilan Marines Massacre and the Extra-judicial Killings.

In the psy-war game there is a technique called perception displacement, I saw one experimental video of a group of dancers dressed in black and white uneventfully dancing and whirling around. The annotator asked the audience to view the same video but to keep focused on the center and as I concentrated I began to see a black gorilla walking form right to left, staying and dancing in the center, then moving out the left – something I completely missed in the first viewing. The technique is called displacement and when you review the Basilan Marines Massacre investigation you see the pattern of confusion used until the main focus is lost – this is being done in the Glorietta blast case.

Senator Trillanes has aces up his sleeve on the Glorietta bombing case, linking the Gloria regime and her Light-a-Fire firebug to this and other bombing incidents. I Trillanes’ pinpointing Malacañang made Malacañang abort its “terrorist line” and now wants the “accidental cause” as the conclusion to the investigations; Senator Trillanes will force the complete truth out. Even Ambassador Christie Kenney may have some explaining to do too, and her embassy still has to in Michael Meiring’s case. Razon’s fart will be a gas ball bigger than could have been imagined.

Meanwhile, on Erap’s case: during the oral argumentation of the Motion for Reconsideration, Sandiganbayan chief Teresita de Castro said they “will stand by” their original conviction, dousing any chance for justice there. At the Supreme Court Puno is the ponente of the “constructive resignation” of Estrada, and more anti-Estrada justices (including de Castro, Villaruz and the prosecutor) are slated to be promoted there in the months ahead, quashing any hope there. Estrada’s lawyers’ recommendation could be betrayed by Gloria – either way, after that it’ll be three steps forward for Estrada.

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