An Epic Failure

Almost three weeks after the hostage incident, and finding myself wide awake and mentally active despite the time, I decided to open my blog and write about it. Why now, you might ask, when everyone else has gotten tired of the whole thing? Why now when all we wish to do is to sweep everything under the rug and forget that it ever happened? It's partly because I'm just bored and partly because I just wanted those know-it-alls to quiet down before I write my part. It doesn't matter that only a handful of you will read this. But I do hope that from my twisted point of you, you'll realize that I have a point.

I watched the entire scene unfold while watching the evening news. I witnessed the drama, as you all have, the gore, the suspense, the grief, the horror and the shame. The entire thing was an epic failure. By the end of the event, I was as dumbfounded as everyone else. I even switched channels and everything was being aired in all major news channel all over the world, CNN, BBC, Al-Jazeera. Once again, the Philippines is on the map and for all the wrong reasons.

The following days dragged on like a melodramatic soap opera, everybody knew the plot and still kept watching for lack of a better thing to watch. The criticisms for the Philippine police force, the government, and ultimately, to all Filipinos mounted with a global disgust for this third world country known for its maids, tuberculosis and media killings. It was comparable to a surgical procedure without anaesthesia, large open wounds without anyone knowing how to stop the bleeding.

Amazingly, it was then that all forms of experts gave their opinions on how things should've been handled, how things could have been done differently. The blame game was on, everyone was pointing at everyone as the one responsible for the fiasco. It was a circus of monkeys and apes, everybody was suspect on who ate the last banana. The police chiefs, the hostage negotiators, the DILG people, the SWAT, the Manila mayor all raised their arms claiming they aren't bloodstained. Don't blame it on me, it wasn't my fault. And yet, there was this bullet ridden bus with bullet ridden dead bodies sprawled on its floor. Everyone wanted to be heroes if it ended in success but no one wanted to take the blame if it failed, which it did.

There was this psychologist who said, they should've changed the negotiator when the point came where he lost his credibility to the hostage-taker. I did not even think for a minute he, the psychologist, himself was credible enough to speak of matters beyond conventional matters. This is a crisis situation for heaven's sake with a desperate man and a rifle. This is something you don't see in your office everyday. It's more complicated than that. I admired Jackie Chan who said that it was impossible to predict what could've happened there. If you tried to negotiate longer, there would still be people who would say you should've stormed earlier. And if you tried to storm the bus earlier, there would still be people who would say you shoudl've negotiated longer. It could've gone either way.

What alarmed me, was that, yeah everything went from bad to worse and far worse in minutes, but do you really want to rub it in? Do you really have to go out there, screaming in social networks, commenting on blogs and articles about how stupid your people and its leaders are? Do you really have to join in lambasting the government and its police force for its inadequacies? Chances are, your government already knows it, so can you just zip it and pray? I'm not saying, we curtail our freedom of speech here. There are people who should be held liable for this mess, we all know that. But when the whole world criticizes your government, your country and your people, do you really have to pull a dagger and stab it on the back? There are alot of them out there, Filipinos taking sides with the Chinese and all them haters criticizing the Philippines side by side. Can this be more sad than it already is? When the son turns his back on his family and condemns them alongside strangers? To these people, an advice: When everyone else is against you, stick to your own. Be like the mafia, never disagree in front of other people, but feel free to argue within your own home. That's how Israel survives despite being surrounded by Arab countries. That's how the Godfather built his empire. With undying loyalty from their own people.

True, this crisis has revealed that the PNP is a big failure. I pray, we, as a people, the Filipino people, are not.