Philippine Hostage Drama Part I

The Chinese from Hongkong came over as friends to see  us and the country. It is too bad that some of them cannot go back home alive and share their travel logs to their loved ones.  I regret sincerely for that. A lot of my friends flooded my e-mail with questions on how I assess the incident. With one reply to them all I said that  my opinion is here in QUOD DIXIT DIXIT.

I believe that the government did the right thing in eliminating the multi-awarded former cop Rolando Mendoza although there might have been some problems on the capabilities of the assaulting team and  their tactics.  As a decorated officer, he has all the necessary training including marksmanship. Armed with an M-16 an a seemingly bladed weapon,  his threat “I shot two Chinese. I will finish them all if . . .” must not be taken lightly. In fact, per the bus driver, the dismissed cop killed most of his hostages. It would be stupid to assume that he was just kidding in his threat that he would kill them all. He already started killing to start with.

What if Mendoza killed all of the Chinese in the bus before he was finally taken down? I am glad that the situation did not end like that.

Although I agree with the government decision in using its resources to end the hostage crisis, I  am so sorry that there are collateral damages in the process of restoring order.

Mendoza was surrounded by a 30-60 strong SWAT team and  snipers. As a former cop, he knew what his former comrades, now his enemies, can do. Despite that, as proven by the events,  he was determined to execute his saber-rattling plan. When the police was pushed back to the wall after a 30-minute negotiation extension was refused, the police did not have much time to reconstruct their plans on how to end the  stand off and they might have even run out of option other than to use force. The drama ended when Mendoza was hit in the head by an able sniper.

If asked what could have been done better based from what I saw  from live TV broadcast, the police  had the option to position their top snipers several meters directly from the bus door and from all sides of the bus for any eventuality. They could have used tactics to persuade the hostage-taker to release one more hostages bearing his notes of demand before the  available sniper squeezed the trigger.  Better still if possible, police negotiators should have tried to persuade Mendoza to receive a "special" cell phone from them equipped with a powerful explosive  with a remote control so that "he can talk directly to whoever he wanted to; the President included."  But again,  the situation could have been very critical that looking for "better" options  was not an option. Mendoza was not an ordinary hostage-taker.  He was one of the best officers and understandably had a SWAT training.  Last but not least, how I wish that the police officers had modern weapons and communication system for a more lethal and simultaneous assault from every direction of the bus to disorient the suspect and give him less time to react defensively or offensively.

I hope that the media did not air the incident live to give Mendoza a bird's eye view on what was going on outside.  The tourist bus might been equipped with TV screens and a radio.

I know that such recommendations are easier to say than to be done. What must be noted are the sequences of the events and how critical they were. 

It is not fair to presume that the police maneuver was not precise because I was not at the scene. Based from footages, chronology of events and the accuracy of what actually went on were impossible to determine.   If there was a mistake, it could have been in the execution of the plan to end the hostage crisis.  However, there was no option better than what was done could have been chosen. It was not possible for their sniper to aim his rifle when the sight of the target  had poor visibility.  The bus is equipped with drapes.

Let the experts do the investigation and reconstruct how the crime unfolded; what could have been done better; where the mistakes were and what lessons were learned if similar situations are encountered again.

In a thriller like that as in the “Raid on Entebbe”, officers arrive at a split-second decision to save hostages. In the case of Mendoza that put the Philippines in global headlines, I am sure the hostages  were  not the target of the police but in their race against time before a disaster happens; they took their chance and thus the drama ended that way.

It is unfortunate that the Chinese government has warned its citizens to refrain from coming over to our country because of the incident and I don’t blame them for that. Other nationalities familiar with the  news planning to come over should have started asking for their ticket refund. We lose some income from the tourism industry but we should live by it.  If the same incident happened in the US, Britain or Russia and even in China, I am quite positive that their security forces would have done what we did.

A number of dead is a lot better than “all dead”. -30-

(This was written immediately after the hostage fiasco. See Part II of the blog entry on top.  -COR INVICTUS)