Looking for Bruce Willis

I watched the live coverage of the Luneta hostage incident shortly before the wheels of the bus were shot at.I waited for policemen to storm the bus and put an end to the crisis and was surprised when they did not.

 I had just seen Bruce Willis in "Die Hard" a few nights before and expected the ending to be similar. Bruce Willis took on a group of bad men by himself. The policemen at Luneta outnumbered the lone hostage-taker. I expected no less than a happy ending.

 As we all know, no such happy ending took place. Instead, we saw how ill-equipped our policemen were.They looked like they were going to subdue violent protesters at an anti-government rally, not an armed and agitated ex-policeman. They did not have the bullet-proof vests, helmets, and other gadgets that fans of shows like "NCIS" and "24" are used to seeing on responding policemen.

 They looked as if they didn't know what they were doing, too. In most Hollywood movies and tv shows, policemen always moved decisively and, except when the point of the story is to show how wily the bad men are (and responding policemen get blown up), they always saved the innocent and killed or put the bad men behind bars.

 I suppose Hollywood movies and tv shows were the standards by which everyone judged how the policemen acted during the Luneta incident.YouTube provided more material and a video on how Serbian special forces trained for a hostage-taking incident was widely circulated in the Internet.

 The day after, everyone had an opinion as to what the policemen should have done, all analysis, of course, made from the comforts of their homes or from the overstuffed couches of coffee shops in snazzy malls, insulated from the reality that the Philippines is a Third World country.

 What I could not understand was how some Filipinos saw the occasion as a cause for shame for the Philippines and Filipino culture.Based on comments I read on Internet news articles, it was baffling to hear Filipinos say that they hated the Philippines and could not wait to leave it. Some Filipinos even echoed the comments of a foreigner who said that the incident (as well as the loss of Venus Raj in the Ms. Universe contest) showed that Filipinos don't demand enough of themselves and their government.

 It's the kind of conclusion that one who never left the Makati Central Business District and/or saw only the glitzy tourist enclaves would make.For example, can he say that workers at the Navotas fishport who leave their relocation site in Montalban, Rizal at three in the morning are not demanding enough of themselves? What would constitute demanding enough from the government? Picket Malacañang and other government offices everyday?

 I was even more baffled when I got a text message asking me to show up at the Quirino grandstand "to show the remorse of the Filipinos" for the incident. I share the sadness of those who lost family and friends but I do not see why anyone, except the perpetrator of the crime, should show remorse.What should Filipinos be remorseful of? Being citizens of a poor country is not a crime.

 I would rather see the Luneta incident as an isolated event. Certainly, it showed flaws in how policemen and other government agencies reacted to a crisis, which means that areas for improvement should not be that difficult to identify. It showed how media needs to review its guidelines in handling events where its actions may affect the outcome. It showed how vulnerable to abuse our OFWs are.To paraphrase a friend, bad things happen all over the world everyday and it was our turn last Monday.

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