Manila, Philippines — Malacañang shrugged off fears, on Sunday, that President Aquino’s visit on Saturday to an American warship that was responsible for the eventual sea burial of Osama Bin Laden, would agitate and stir into action local groups sympathetic with the cause of the world’s most wanted and now slain Al-Qaeda leader.
“No I don’t think there is going to be a backlash….I don’t think it will do that sort of thing,” Communications Secretary Ricky Carandang said a day after the President and a few members of his Cabinet, including Carandang, took a tour of the USS Carl Vinson prior to its entry to Philippine waters.
The US warship was responsible for initially bringing via helicopters a US Navy Seal team into Pakistan that raided the house where Bin Laden was hiding and killed him early this month. The carrier was also responsible for burying Bin Laden’s remains at sea.
Amid concerns that the Aquino administration should be sensitive to Bin Laden’s supporters here who may be outraged by the presidential visit, Carandang reminded that the country has a defense treaty with the United States and that President Aquino’s tour of the US Navy aircraft carrier was “normal part” of that cooperation.
Carandang also said the government was not trying to send any message by the presidential visit to the US warship.
And while President Aquino was aware of media reports of the US warship’s controversial mission in Pakistan recently, the communications secretary also reiterated that neither the Chief Executive nor US naval officials of the USS Carl Vinson talked about that mission.
“Honestly, nobody mentioned it.. There had been no confirmation from the US authorities. We didn’t turn it into an issue. We didn’t ask. We were just touring the ship,” he told reporters.
Aside from Carandang, the other members of the Cabinet who accompanied President Aquino in the trip were Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin, Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert delo Rosario, Armed Forces Chief of Staff Gen. Eduardo Oban and Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima.
They were picked up by US authorities at the Villamor air base in Pasay City at about 9 a.m. on Saturday and were brought onboard the US Navy aircraft carrier via a US C-150 cargo plane.
Carandang said that US Ambassador Harry Thomas organized the tour and invited President Aquino sometime ago.
“We are a new administration. I think Ambassador Thomas thought it would be nice to see an aircraft carrier. It turns out that among us, it was only Secretary del Rosario who has seen an aircraft carrier. For the rest of us it was a new experience,” he said.
Carandang also explained that the presidential visit occurred while the US warship was in international waters because probably US authorities wanted to show them the “maneuvers” of the aircraft in the ship.
“Because they had scrambled F-16s mostly to show us their capability. It was more convenient to be done at open sea than in closer shores,” he said.
Asked whether the US warship ventured towards the Reed Bank, where Philippine authorities had a recent skirmish with Chinese vessels, he said, they did not.
“They had a course heading for Manila so that’s about north of Reed Bank. At one point we must have been 140 kilometers west of Luzon. So north of the reed bank,” he said.
The visit also saw President Aquino doing small talk with over 100 Filipino-Americans who were part of the 1,000 crew.
Mr. Aquino and his officials got a blue cap each with his name and the USS Carl Vinson on it.