Sanctions

Chief Superintendent Rodolfo Magtibay’s police career is over, and Rico Puno the gun aficionado can be fired as interior undersecretary in charge of the Philippine National Police (PNP).

Other PNP officers who played a role in the Aug. 23 hostage crisis can be slapped with varying degrees of administrative sanctions.

Unlike print journalists, members of the broadcast media are covered by state-approved franchises that bind them specifically to certain rules of coverage. Penalties are therefore possible for the media personalities, their bosses or their companies deemed accountable for the tragic denouement of the hostage crisis.

But what can President Aquino do with the other individuals, among them Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim and Vice Mayor Francisco Domagoso (a.k.a. Isko Moreno), Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez and her deputy Emilio Gonzales III, and three media personalities who were considered accountable for the hostage fiasco by the incident investigation and review committee (IIRC)?

This is a common question following the partial release of the IIRC report and P-Noy’s announcement of the 13 individuals who were found liable for acts, including those of omission, that resulted in the deaths of eight tourists from Hong Kong.

Several of the eight “critical incidents” (the IIRC’s words) involved lapses, acts or orders of Lim, who chairs Manila’s crisis management committee. A mayor can be suspended or face other sanctions on orders of the Ombudsman, a judge or the secretary of the interior, but this usually involves a criminal or administrative offense.

In the hostage mess, most of the public officials deemed liable by the IIRC appear guilty mainly of ineptness and poor judgment calls, unless leaving a crisis at its worst moment to eat can be considered abandonment of one’s post or dereliction of duty.

Gutierrez, for her part, can be removed only by impeachment, but she can be sanctioned by the Supreme Court, as it once did in the case of the first tanodbayan (the original title of the ombudsman), Raul Gonzalez. But that was over a dispute between Gonzalez and the SC itself.

Deputy Ombudsman Gonzales has denied asking P150,000 from hostage taker Rolando Mendoza to reverse his dismissal from the PNP for extortion. So why was Gonzales included among those recommended for sanctions? We won’t know until the dispositive portion of the report is made public.

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Reading the longer first part of the IIRC report, you can sense that Magtibay could be headed for either a demotion or premature retirement, or possibly both, after he was taken to task for “gross insubordination” for disobeying an order from no less than the President himself.

What was the order? To deploy the PNP Special Action Force (SAF) instead of the Manila Police District (MPD)’s Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team for the assault.

Magtibay should get a good lawyer to defend himself. He said he didn’t know that the order came from P-Noy, which was disputed by the officer who relayed the order, Superintendent Remus Medina. There are two possible reasons for this. The first is that a one-star police general, director of the Manila police, does not take orders from the equivalent of a colonel, and the expanded team that had relocated the crisis control center to the Emerald Garden had sent the wrong messenger. Magtibay simply tuned out when Medina opened his mouth. Why didn’t Magtibay’s immediate superior (and Medina’s), Leocadio Santiago Jr. of the Metro Manila police command, bark out the order himself to the MPD chief?

The other is that the hostage situation was unfolding in Manila, it was the problem of Manila, and there was no way either the MPD or the city’s crisis management team would allow the SAF to get into the picture. Before Mendoza came unhinged, no one knew that Manila’s SWAT team would be a laughingstock by the end of the day. MPD members told me that the SWAT team had been deployed to other crisis situations in the past and had performed well.

Magtibay finally got the message that the SAF was taking over the assault only when it became clear that his SWAT team was bungling royally on prime time TV.

The detailed IIRC report reinforced impressions formed during the marathon hearings of the committee, that the crisis shifted from moments when no one was in control to moments when too many bosses were in charge and issuing sometimes conflicting orders to different officials.

One word can sum up the government’s response: chaotic.

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It’s touching to read the IIRC’s observations that manuals and protocols and rules of ethics and engagement were ignored in the responses of the police and crisis team and in media coverage.

Really, who reads those manuals? Perhaps now officials will – and promptly forget everything.

In our case, we were required to memorize a code of ethics in journalism school, but many other factors govern coverage especially by the broadcast media. As one of the three media personalities admitted to the IIRC, coverage of the crisis became part of a network ratings war.

Print journalists are lucky that we are not required to provide audio-visual footage of an unfolding crisis to our customers in real time. Print journalists can stay behind police lines without a serious setback to the quality of the news we provide. It is easier for us to heed the admonition: Don’t be the story.

But with the growing popularity of multimedia and newsroom convergence, we might soon also find ourselves facing the ethical dilemmas of our colleagues in broadcasting.

The Aug. 23 crisis should teach the PNP to be more assertive in imposing control over a crime scene, even at the risk of antagonizing mass media.

Will President Aquino go along with the IIRC recommendations on the media personalities and the other individuals deemed liable?

The committee he formed generally lived up to expectations, although all those found liable are of course unhappy. His actions on its recommendations should not disappoint.