LAST SUNDAY, the Office of the Ombudsman was bombed early in the morning. The explosion damaged the water treatment facility in the compound, and shattered some windows.

The dawn bombing reminds us of Sept. 18, 1972, when the toilet of the Constitutional Convention was bombed. The government immediately blamed the communists. This led retired Justice JBL Reyes to quip, “What is this, revolution by constipation?” The recent bombing leads us to ask, “What is this, destabilization by thirst?”

The day after the weekend bombing of the Ombudsman’s office, janitors about to water the plants in the Department of Agriculture discovered an improvised explosive device that later investigation seems to have determined was a dud that didn’t go off when it was supposed to.

This brings up the interesting possibility that the bombing of the Ombudsman’s office was supposed to be the first of a string of blasts. A “suspicious package,” after all, was found outside a condominium along Katipunan Avenue where then Vice President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her family once had a penthouse unit.

Whatever the actual circumstances behind the bombing – or planned bombings – three things stand out.

First is that the net effect of these events has been to justify increasing security measures in government offices, and by virtue of the government speaking darkly of “destabilization plots,” to beef up security measures while causing unease among the public.

The condominium where a “suspicious package” was found is just across the street from where Ateneo de Manila students have held regular Friday noise barrages against the constituent assembly plan. And citizens have begun to express unease over the vulnerability of the MRT and LRT.

We can only imagine what sort of effect government’s drumbeating about the need to increase military and police visibility, and tighten security measures, will have on protest activities like the Friday noise barrages, and the expected nationwide noise barrage being planned for the weekend before the President’s State of the Nation Address.

Second, these stories bog down government’s critics in an essentially futile finger-pointing exercise about means and motives for the bombings. The usual critics are already saying it’s a government plot. The government is giving its usual response, which is that it’s the critics who are doing the bombing, and all the while implanting in people’s minds the possibility those things could get worse. Officials, after all, dismiss the possibility that they are doing the bombings by pointing out how primitive the “explosive devices” are.

Third, the explosions have swept aside all the politically inconvenient headlines that have been causing officialdom headaches. Forgotten, all of a sudden, are plans to amend the Constitution, including the possibility that the President has hatched a plan to become prime minister; public criticism of her junkets; and the possibility that electoral automation has gotten derailed, which brings up the possibility of a 2004-style election in 2010.

We do not discount the possibility that a destabilization plot is afoot, but neither do we discount the possibility that officialdom, and not the forces lusting to replace it, is behind the plot. But we consider it more probable, at the present time, to remind our readers to look at the actual circumstances surrounding the so-called bombing and discovery of suspicious packages, and ask whether public panic and terror are justified at the present time.

What we believe is justified is the strong suspicion that there is political mileage to be gained from these events, and that mileage has been calculated to redound to the benefit of the administration. Hardly any actual damage has been done; much more damaging has been the reminder to all ordinary citizens that there are forces out to use extreme measures for political ends.

Therefore, we counsel resistance. We must resist fear. We do not counsel laughing in the face of danger. We challenge the government’s actions that sow fear among the general population. We counsel vigilance but also consider the possibility that we, the people, are being tested.

To what end? To take the citizenry’s measure should darker times indeed be ahead.