'The sweetest freedom any free man or woman can ever have in a democratic country such as ours is the freedom to travel'. That is solidly guaranteed in the Constitution. This, in fact, is the reason your freedom to travel – to move from one place to another – is the very first thing that the law takes away from you when you are being punished for a crime you have committed – they put you in prison. They know just where it hurts most. This is the reason, too, the people’s freedom to travel has become a major target of the terrorist mind that’s out to hurt the government because, well, it probably is  laming the government for its failures and frustrations, or maybe, thinking it can “change the world” or impose its “religion” by toppling governments with violent acts against innocent civilians.

Just to be honest about it, our world today is just so full of deranged frustrated losers and people who think they canchange the world or impose their beliefs on other people by toppling the government with violent acts against innocent civilians. And that doesn’t include yet the vicious criminals – robbers, bandits and pirates – who are victimizing helpless passengers.

Terrorism, no doubt, is taking place all over the planet, and it knows no boundaries.

In 2001, the whole world watched in horror while the mighty twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City collapsed like melting wax after terrorists crashed into each one of them a giant jetliner that was full of passengers and aviation fuel. And right here in the Philippines, we have seen terrorists’ bombs in the territories of passenger ships, passenger airplanes, passenger trains, and even passenger buses that had nothing in them except innocent poor people who were either just moving around making an honest living or just traveling to another place to visit loved ones. In fact, the planning stage for the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in America took place inside the terrorists’ hideouts here the Philippines.

The Philippine government –although some alien “observers” have perceived it to be “one of the most corrupt governments in the world” – is not stupid, pure and simple, and, certainly, not without a heart. A most significant move that the Philippine government has carried out to protect the people’s freedom to travel is the creation of the Office for Transportaion Security (OTS), which is attached to the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC), presently headed by Secretary Jose P. De Jesus