Donald Rumsfeld on Glorietta blast:it's WMD, stupid!

This is my response to John Nery's recent blog Sleepless in Glorietta:

Dear John,

Skepticism is generally healthy, especially when it is solidly grounded. I have examined the premises of yours and find them wanting. To summarize, you “have a hard time believing” the conclusion because:

1. A few hours after the explosion, the PNP Chief himself aired the possibility that the blast was caused by a bomb. Yet, the well-written editorial you adverted to had this correct assertion: We recognize their testing of new theories as consistent with the emergence of new facts. Rather than being a basis for skepticism, this point tends to diminish it.
2. The visits by the PNP top brass to the various newsrooms were highly unusual. It could be that this is merely the way the new Chief does business, but as one can readily see from a comparison of the same-but-different front pages of the Inquirer and the Star the day after the visit, this kind of unusual attention stokes a journalist’s hard-earned skepticism. Couldn’t this have (when was this visit?) been just a media management attempt on such a disconcerting incident? I wonder why the Inquirer did not have the more appropriate headline “PNP officers visit PDI, eat own crow in front of editors!” consistent with your head “Palace fixes 190 congressmen” on the bribes scandal.
3. The police generals were quick to adopt an aw-shucks attitude when questioned about the technical details of the (new) theory they were proposing. But since then, police have also released a lot of information tending toward the gas blast theory, including the two reports featured in a special section of PDI with many photos of the basement which showed no signs of a bomb explosion.
4. My own sources tell me about other findings, other “facts” unaccounted for in the new theory. Unfortunately, I am not in a position to corroborate what they say. Why don’t you share these ‘facts’ for the careful consideration of your anxious readers? The Inquirer should also post the Australian report in its website.

The officials should be castigated for their rush to judgment early on. On the other hand we can’t be faulted for our rush to skepticism considering the current political atmosphere. But might we be faulted for a lingering, adamant, and unreasonable skepticism oblivious of the established facts already made available? A professional skeptic like me was instantly skeptical of the members of the Psychic Entertainment Network featured in ANC yesterday, but that is because of my appreciation of mainstream science. Would you happen to know of any arcane scientific findings which cast doubt on the gas blast theory? In other words, tell us what in the future needs to be established for you to find the theory easier to believe.

Before I forget let me attempt to dispose of the initial finding of RDX on one sample from the ground floor. In my earlier and long blogs on the subject, I raised the possibility that this was simply a false positive, owing to the limitations of the test itself. Because of the absence of reference to this in the reports of the foreign investigators, I take it that they were not able to replicate the result, and did not emphasize the fact out of professional courtesy to their local counterparts. I have read almost all the PDI articles on the blast but could not find any reference to any of your reporters pursuing this false positive angle.

Finally, your skepticism reminds me of ex-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s disengenuously original defensive remark: The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence in regard to the failure of investigators to find the slightest trace of WMD in Iraq post invasion.

Sincerely yours,

viking logarta