Philippine Hostage Drama Part II

The Philippine hostage drama that ended in tragedy has caught the attention of the world. My fears that the government forces have problems with their assault capabilities and tactics as mentioned in the previous entry of this blog came true.  Now, let met include modern weapons and communications equipment they lacked.  I hit the bull's eye!

As the hostage crisis developed, the media put on live broadcast via television and radio what was going on in the scene. That gave Mendoza, the hostage-taker, a somewhat upper hand in momentarily evading the hale of bullets or surprise assault as he was watching the unfolding of events from the internal TV of the bus.

My previous entry in this blog failed to mention that the stage I was talking about was the time frame when the SWAT team started to do their job after efforts to end the stand off  peacefully were futile. The operation could have lasted from 10 to 15 minutes after roughly 11 hours and 45 minutes since the stand off started.

In that span of time, what happened?

Behind the scene we don’t know what really happened although I believe that the Department of Foreign Affairs was in contact with their Chinese counterpart.  I wonder if the police sent a psychiatrist-negotiator  to deal with Mendoza and since the crisis ended in tragedy,  their tactical know how is doubted. What is gray is the length of time the police needed before they were convinced that the belligerent Mendoza did not like to be appeased and looked determined to finish off his hostages one at a time.

An hour of negotiation or even less could have been enough before the raiding team stormed the bus. Casualties might have been lesser although nothing is sure in a critical situation like that.

The media is partly to be blamed for the unhappy ending. We understand their role to inform the public with current events but the electronic gadgets of the bus should have been scrambled to keep the suspect guessing  and let the police operation go uncompromized.  The live broadcast  which the police did not stop endangered more the lives of the hostages.

Did Mendoza act alone? If not, did somebody order him to do it after he was given ample amount of money? But why the Chinese from Hongkong were the target? Where and how did he get his weapon?

We’ll wait and see the result of the investigation. Although somewhere, there were blunders, I still believe that the police did the right thing for “a number of dead is a lot better than “all dead”. -30-

(See Part I of the blog entry below.  -COR INVICTUS)