Shocked troops

My heart went out for those brave men who composed the assault team on the captive bus. They were ill-equipped, badly trained and horribly led — and, in the aftermath, took the brunt of blame from a distressed and humiliated nation.

I did bother to listen in on the testimonies of all the officials called in by the Incident Investigation and Review Committee. The story of high-level bungling consistently and incessantly unfolded through the first two days of the hearings. When the most critical moment approached, all the officials were away from the scene. The entire situation was basically left in the hands of the MPD SWAT team assigned to assault the bus.

At least we now know why Emerald restaurant became some sort of “command post” away from the scene of the tragedy: Mayor Lim was hungry.

On the evening of Saturday, when everybody else seemed too exhausted (and too disappointed) to take any more testimonies, the members of the assault team were put on the stand. At first, while the members of the investigating panel was taking a break, the policemen were subjected to pointless interrogation by some haughty prosecutor who did not seem to know what he was doing.

When the proper members of the panel trickled back into the hearing room, the interrogation became more substantial — and more enlightening.

 Earlier, in his testimony, the NCRPO chief provided useful information about the relative competencies of police units. The SAF unit, which was deployed nearby but never called in was immensely better-trained and better-equipped than the MPD team actually deployed to undertake the assault.

 The MPD team was not only badly equipped. They did not have a clear plan. They “rehearsed” on a dissimilar bus through the day but were dumbfounded when the fiberglass windows of the tourist bus would not yield to their sledgehammer. After that, they really did not know what to do.

 They were supposed to be the shock troops. They ended up shocked troops.

 For an hour, they milled around the beleaguered bus. That was enough time for a munitions-conscious hostage-taker to individually strangle the remaining hostages.

The weary Capt. Mendoza did not do that, of course. He shot a few and then focused his attention on actually defending his bus. He fired out of the windows and hit the helmet of one member of the assault team caught peering into the darkened interior of the ill-fated bus. That helmet, at least, performed according to specifications.

 There was, we now know, a tragic attempt by some of the hostages to take it upon themselves to subdue the hostage-taker. They paid for that futile attempt with their lives. When a situation like this is allowed to linger on as long as it did, tragicomic things happen.

 I could not see the reason why Mayor Lim seemed so confident that the police could just lay back and tire out the madman who had already fired shots at the negotiators. He must have thought that Mendoza, like him, would get very hungry and just drop everything and walk over to a nearby restaurant.

 When asked how often they trained, the members of the assault team struggled to remember. They did not train in marksmanship. Their flak jackets were obsolete. They did not do drills. Their officers must have thought that, by simply painting the letters “SWAT” on their gear, they would be an intimidating force.

 When asked how the components of the assault team communicated with each other, the policemen said they used cell phones. Did they actually text each other in the heat of battle?

 Well, not really. One policeman testified that the heavy rain soaked his phone and rendered it useless.

 Real assault teams do nothing but drill. Ideally, each member of the assault team should be equipped with individual communications gear so that orders may be barked and the movement of the entire team properly choreographed.

 We’ve had two weeks to heap insult on this particular assault team. We’ve spelled out “SWAT” in the most derisive ways. We have compared them to the Keystone Kops — that slapstick team of bungling policemen from the age of silent movies.

 Maybe now we can be a little kinder, a little more sympathetic.

They should not have been ordered to undertake the assault in the first place. Not every locality can have a top-quality special weapons and tactics team. That will be expensive to maintain and will not be efficient use of resources and manpower.

 This is the reason why the PNP has the Special Action Force (SAF). It is the especially trained unit for crisis situations, whether this be sorting out a hostage situation or neutralizing a band of terrorists. It is on call, ready to be deployed around the clock. We spent a lot training and equipping this elite unit. When the moment for using them came, they were not called in.

It is therefore not true that our police force is a particularly neglected agency. It has been wonderfully treated the past few years. When that hostage crisis broke out, our police had the talent, the skills, the equipment and all the means necessary to deal with it.

What happened was a failure in leadership. The proper units were not used. The correct tactics were not applied. The situation was not given the priority attention it deserved.

Nothing demonstrates that more than the utter lack of grasp of the standing protocols demonstrated by the Manila mayor and his sidekick. Nothing underscores that more than their being away from the scene when the bloodbath began.