1st Anniversary of Manila hostage crisis

While posting my response now, I am currently watching History channel's documentary of Manila Crisis. According to that docu, the ground commander who is gen. magtibay and mayor lim was to blame, since they didn't follow what pres. aquino had ordered earlier. He wanted the SAF to penetrate the bus but gen. magtibay wanted the SWAT to do the work. The SWAT didn't have enough training for this kind of job and since it has some international people involve, that is why pres. aquino wanted SAF to handle it. Now I know why those chinese nationals wanted some explanation regarding those people who is to blame are still in their position until now like mayor lim. For me, I think I blame those two men who doesn't have enough knowledge and training how to handle this kind of matter, all they did was to eat at the nearby restaurant and there was nobody to command the people at that time. C'mon, they still had the guts to eat at a nearby restaurant in the middle of a hostage crisis? the heck!

if you blame the cops by using the media... i also blame the cops for a different reason... i blame the cops because they are not using their best snipers to shot one bullet to the threat for a plenty of chances....

Hi LK, i still remember how my heart turn into pieces when i watched that incident last year. This thing should not be repeated again, especially here in our country. It really show that our police force are really not ready to that kind of incident. Their lack of equipment, their lack of determination and aggression to follow that attack when they got a chance. Even our government has a lack of preparation to manipulate or control the incident into a successful one.

I remember the date very well friend, we would had been there on that date because it was my children's field trip but the date was moved because of a slight payment collection thing, moved 2 days after and we were also on a tourist bus after we came from Subic and we were due in the Ocean Park, I saw what remained of the carnage, people rich and poor alike were putting wreaths and flowers at the scene where the bus was and I really felt our countrymen were sincere in condoling with the casualties especially with our Chinese friends( i even shed a tear or 2) and think we apologized already and even our government, I know no amount of apology is enough for the families of the victims, but that is just how things turned out, in fairness I think it's very hard to deal with a deranged and determined hostage taker although I agree with you that we screwed it up ( in a way) especially when it came to negotiations and command responsibility, a real hard pill to swallow

If that hostage crisis happened elsewhere, the moment the hostage taker showed his body or head, he would've been blown to pieces. I also could not understand as to why other special units were not tapped for this situation, the cops there knew the hostage taker and since it was one of their own, a lot of them hesitated to even fire a shot. Hopefully, this is a lesson well earned for them, if this happens again, they should all be fired for incompetence

Thats just the thing...why are cops the only one in there? Weren't there other tactical units such as SWAT and other groups there as well? :/ I didn't really like this incident as much :

I don't know whether I will be pleased to relive this incident over a year ago when basically we just showed the world how unprepared and as you said, screwed, we are especially our police force. It's basically the choice of ignoring the whole thing or relive it again with shame. No doubt that the relatives of the tourists will be airing their side on why justice isn't still served. A mirror reflection of our justice system and our law enforcement system (which both sucks). Personally, I thought that the people involved in that incident got a slap on the roister. Nobody wanted to take responsibility and in tradition, pointed the blame on others. Not exactly the kind of picture that we wish to impose on the coutnry of the victims, much less the international stage. I just hope that the guys at our law enforcement agencies learned a hard lesson in this incident. If this happened again, I don't know what kind of system we have.

That hostage taking incident have clearly illustrated how ill-prepared the cops were in handling the hostage crisis. This was not the first time it happened and I'm sure it wouldn't be the last. What is more funny is that they made themselves look like idiots when some days after that, they conducted a simulated hostage taking, and this time they were so "effective" because the hostages were rescued (zero casualties), the hostage taker was arrested and everything went smoothly. But this makes them good only in simulation and not in the real thing.