Feeling the effects of the hostage crisis

The fallout or the ripple effect of that blotched hostage crisis has already started. Many hotels and resorts here in Cebu already received several cancellations from Hong Kong. It’s just a few days since the world witnessed how the Philippine National Police (PNP) “Riot” Police bungled that hostage crisis. Surely, those policemen were not SWAT as SWAT teams do not carry shields or truncheons!

Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang declared, “This is a serious blow to Hong Kong people. We all feel very devastated.” Then he went on to criticize the way this hostage crisis was so badly mishandled. Perhaps it is time that someone told the people of Hong Kong that we Filipino are also horrified and embarrassed about this incident and would like to see heads roll as a result of this fiasco.

Even text messages have gone wild; one even said that Pres. Noynoy Aquino did not answer a call from the Hong Kong Chief Executive because he was in a close door meeting. This is why Tsang is sore at the Philippines. If it’s true, then P.Noy needs to apologize to Tsang for this faux pas! Perhaps this is the reason why P.Noy already apologized the other day.

Our complaints focused on the SWAT team’s inability to storm the bus in blinding speed, thus giving the hostage taker time to shoot his hostages. Even the snipers that the PNP placed in strategic places were in the wrong places. A tourist bus has a very narrow alley and a well-placed sniper positioned in front of the bus could have easily pick out the hostage taker, especially since he was armed with an Armalite, which wasn’t easy to move around inside the bus. Mendoza even escorted one hostage that he freed to the bus door and he even waved to onlookers. If a sniper was trailing him, one shot and the whole thing would have been over with no hostages dead.

At this point, the Aquino administration must accept the blame for this bungled operation. I just hope that they do not bungle all efforts they must do to exact damage control as what I said yesterday. I gathered that P.Noy is sending a high-level delegation to assuage the people of Hong Kong that this would never happen again.

Meanwhile, aside from fixing Keystone cop style of the SWAT team that the world witnessed, we need to dig deeper into why dismissed Senior Inspector Rolando Mendoza turned from one of the Top Ten Outstanding Policemen in this country to a criminal, whose life ended in a hail of bullets with the entire world watching on satellite tv. Supposedly, Mendoza wanted to dialogue with the Ombudsman on his case, but very few people know what that case was all about.

Well, yesterday, The Philippine Star came up with a front-page report entitled “Mendoza victim fears for his life.” It turned out that on the night of April 9, 2008, a young chef Christian Kalaw working with the Mandarin Oriental Hotel was apprehended by five cops led by Mendoza for driving without a license, illegal parking and possession of illegal drugs. These policemen forced him to swallow a white substance which turned out to be shabu, while he was strapped and gagged in his car. Then he was robbed by these policemen, where he was forced to pay them P20,000 for his release.

Unfortunately, Christian Kalaw doesn’t want to talk to the media. We can understand that with what he went through under the police who are supposedly our protectors. Perhaps, the PNP should now arrest the other policemen who were with Mendoza when they extorted money from Kalaw. This only shows that there is more to this mess than what we are seeing.

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Call it the season for awards. The other week the Province of Cebu gave out the prestigious Garbo sa Sugbo Awards, followed by the Papal Awards dubbed “Croce Pro Ecclesia et Pontifiel or Cross of the Church and the Pontiff” given to those who supported the Catholic Church. Then last weekend, his eminence Ricardo Cardinal Vidal bestowed the “Knights of the Order of St. Sylvester award.” But there’s one award that also stands out in its being so prestigious as it is only given once every three years. It is the Triennial Awards given by the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation, Inc. (RAFI), which is now on its 5th award cycle.

Last Thursday, the Triennial Awards Nominations Committee presented the results of the nominations after calling for them in the past six months and the committee has received more than 200 nominations. For the Eduardo Aboitiz Exemplary Award for Outstanding Institution, the nominations committee accepted 128 nominations, while there was a total of 134 nominations for the Ramon Aboitiz Award for the Exemplary Individual. These nominations will then go through a process of screening before the Search Committee chooses the top choice for the 5th Triennial Awards.