What opera-goers seem to want is the tried and trusted formula which attracts them to the operatic classics not media images, post-modern playfulness, overt politics or heavy symbolism, but a compelling human story, a gripping plot and a varied but fundamentally tuneful score.

ECONOMIST: Contemporary opera

Besides, before the Manila bomb plot was uncovered, the government maintained that the security forces had reduced the Abu Sayyaf to a few score members.

ECONOMIST: A convenient bust in the capital