6 November 2003 – Foreign Affairs Secretary Blas F. Ople reiterated that the Philippines is fully aware that terrorists are offended by the success of the Philippines in the war against terror and by the Philippines’s strong adherence to democratic and liberal values and that because of this, terrorists could be targeting the Philippines. But he said that there is no need to place unreasonable labels that do not fully reflect the situation.

The Secretary made this statement after the US Defense Department included the Philippines in its list of “high-risk” terrorist targets.

“We know we are high-risk targets because terrorists detest the values that we hold dear,” the Secretary said.  “But it is not necessary to continue labeling the Philippines as a high-risk target, since no country is truly secure from terrorist attack,” he added.

“Such labels are particularly disconcerting since there are actually no specific terrorist threats against the Philippines,” the Secretary said.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo had earlier said that the Philippines acknowledges the continuing threat of terrorism in the country but that the Philippines deserves full recognition for the effective security measures that have been adopted.

In an earlier statement (No. 565-03; 10 October  2003), the Secretary said “If terrorists seek to hit us because we are a strong democracy, if terrorists cannot stand us because of our liberal and pluralistic society, if terrorists wish to strike at us because we revere freedom, because we are tolerant and because we value human life, if terrorists target us because they cannot accept that we have done much to achieve peace in our country and that we are able to live peacefully with others of different faiths, then by all that is decent, we are the target of terrorists.  We are targets for we are their enemy.” END.