Tragedy in a Bus

It was indeed a tragic event last month the hostage taking in Manila. Tragic to the families of those who were killed, tragic to those whose asses are in the hot seat now and tragic to the Philippines as a whole.

I could not agree more if people say that the situation was poorly handled because the end result shows that it was add to it the rather ridiculous photo session by a group of  less-than-smart policemen - action should be taken against them if you ask me. Then again, if I was one of the policemen in the scene I believe I could not have done better either. It is not easy to make a decision when both your hands and feet are tied. You see, the media had a strong presence in the scene so you can be sure that whatever you do successful or not will be given a different meaning. Shoot the hostage taker before he kills anyone and the Commission on Human Rights will be on your ass like a prowling rottweiler. Not shooting him resulting to the death of some hostages on the otherhand had the international community branding incompetent the Philippine Police force and the Philippine leadership as a whole. There is even one guy in the net quoting SWAT as Squad Without Any Training. Could it get any worse than that or is the comment true?

Whatever it is, I just hope that something good would turn out at least to give sense to those lives lost. A better trained Philippine Police force with extremely competent leaders who can make impossible decisions in the field (I suggest they watch 24 more and learn from Agent Jack Bauer! hehe...), A more responsible media which will consider our country's well-being on top of their news scooping agenda, and a President who will watch his words when doing a public speech (silence could have earned him more respect than careless words).

May this tragedy be an eye-opener and not just one event the media took frenzy of.