Is now too late for a hero?

With the barbarous slaying of eight innocent Hongkong tourists, as against that of the barbaric hostage-taker, consoling factors thereafter don't count at all to the victims.

Like the protracted hostage drama, the search for truth has been tediously long delayed. In the official probe by the committee of DOJ Secretary Leila de Lima, many vital facts and info have begun to unravel, like, no coordination, lackadaisical attitude, no thoroughness and seriousness, and lack of leadership.

After some mysterious hedging, DILG USEC Rico Puno was definitely ordered by the President to oversee the PNP in the hostage crisis. He lately confessed to his no-training, no-experience, or know-nothing on the assigned task. Why did he not candidly tell the President about it? Are his belated "confession" and his readiness to resign, justifying and exculpatory excuse?

No proverbial Monday morning quarterbacking is needed, following USEC Puno's revelations before the De Lima probe that Puno had not been honest about his assigned role which, as it turned out, he botched grossly. If not for Secretary Jesse Robredo's anger on the "silence" of Puno, the latter would possibly have until now kept his bungling in sub-rosa.

With the tragic drama still painfully in hindsight, it appears that Puno was in court jester mood. Imagine how preposterous for him to think aloud that in that imminent danger, "the general idea then was we would just tire him (the hostage taker) out and he would release the hostages". What a naive assumption, considering then the "clear and present danger" situation.

Like Puno, the PNP top man, Dir. General Jesus Verzosa, had exhibited the court joker levity in leaving the ongoing crisis at 3:00 P.M. for Cagayan de Oro City. Likewise, for dearth of responsibility and common sense, and like the crisis management group, he assumed "the general idea" that the hijacking and hostage-taking was merely a "local police" problem. What a costly luxury of uncalled for frivolity!

Gen. Verzosa shrugs off the tragedy with an apology, and to quit the service come Sept. 15. If the President isn't yet so minded, let him be in tenterhooks until everything is all over. Incidentally, did he also shrug off the time he left was also the first threatened deadline which Mendoza had set to start shooting the victims if his demands were denied?

Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim, as the crisis management head from whom ground commander C/Supt. Rodolfo Magtibay got his orders, like the rest of the government officialdom, must have under-estimated the imminent debacle that the drama's theme was heading to, or fated to be. Perhaps, he also viewed the incident as a "local police" problem that his SWAT could quell; also perhaps, the "general idea of waiting for Mendoza to tire out".

As for the President, his owning ultimate "responsibility for everything that transpired" had long been expected. Viewed from all possible angles and perspectives, he had no executive option to shirk from responsibility. Laconically put, his mea culpa could be anti-climactic, if not a denouement, from the point of view of literary fiction. Was the delay due to conflicting advice of the "Bahay" and the "Samar" cliques that has been insinuated to be brewing?

One's analogous treatment of the hostage crisis with the literary tragic drama or play isn't just on a whim. It's axiomatic that there's truth in fiction. In fact, playwrights of yore, as well as contemporary artists, Shakespeare for one, are immortalized for their great tragedies whose plots and theme convey unforgettable lessons and nuggets of wisdom.

In recap, may the well meaning and uncorrupted President Noynoy Aquino realize that uncompromising State leadership with its inseparable political will and decisiveness, is invariably tested in times of crisis - "times that try men's souls", to quote Thomas Paine - than in occasional bliss. Reliance on Secretary Herminio Coloma's boast isn't assuring, that similar debacle wouldn't repeat, is just that, a boast which, God forbid, might turn out a sour lemon.

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