A “major, major” humiliation

An unprepared police force, an ill-equipped “elite” unit, a rescue mission gone awry.

I’d take the liberty of borrowing the words of Miss Universe 4th runner-up Venus Raj in describing the hostage drama on Tuesday in Manila that ended in a bloodbath: It was a “major, major” humiliation.

For a capital city, it was shameful for the all the world to see how incompetent Manila’s police force was in handling an initially peaceful hostage-taking incident. Shameful, in fact, would be an understatement because we all saw how unprepared the special weapons and tactics (SWAT) team was in storming the Hong Thai Transport bus in an attempt to rescue the hostages, or whoever was left of them. But they came too late.

There was nothing special about the SWAT team, especially when they lobbed the tear gas canister without anyone of the strom troopers wearing a gas mask. The attack was hasty. In fact, we even saw how difficult it was for them to hammer down the bus windows and windshield. The hostage-taker was the one on top of the situation. Authorities should have taken him down much earlier.

Also, it was shameful to see how a uniformed police officer took hostage people from a foreign land who had nothing in mind but to savor the beauty of our dear country and experience Filipino hospitality. What could have been their most memorable trip turned out to be their last bus ride alive. Sr. Insp. Rolando Mendoza served as their tour guide to death.

No one but the police should be blamed for what happened. Obviously, the authorities were not prepared to handle such a situation. Imagine if it was a major terrorist attack. Oh! Dear.

The police failed to control the crowd, nobody was in charge to manage the crisis. There was no expert negotiator to deal with the suspect. Adding fuel to the fire was the brother of the suspect, policeman Gregorio Mendoza, who stole the scene by acting as if he was being arrested for being an “accessory” to the crime. He had no business being there. The police was right in trying to keep him away from the scene because blood, certainly, is thicker than water. To my eyes, Gregorio’s “performance” infuriated his brother. Gregorio’s 15 minutes of fame resulted to a lifelong nightmare for the country’s tourism industry and caused another big blot in the already hideous image of the PNP.