A Real Dilemma

Police Senior Inspector Mendoza, the one who was responsible in the hostage taking of the Hong Thai Travel Bus, was a good police in service of the country. In fact, he claimed as one of the most outstanding police of the Philippines. His case in the ombudsman leads him to be dismissed in the service and that turned to be his major cause if his indecent moves.
If they just turned their heads in his “not so hard” demands, there might be no spilling of blood and firing of arms. In fact, he even let some victims to be free in the middle of the crisis. He only wanted his case to be reviewed in order to gain back his benefits and go back to his service. This major happening cannot just be burned to ashes and be forgotten. The whole world watched that scene. The people involved were not just Filipinos but also tourists from other country and most of them were Chinese nationals. This only means that our not so good image of the country only got even worse. In direct effect of it, we are now blacklisted in Hong Kong and China.
The event also exposed the fact that our country is not that ready for these kinds of situations which really have to be considered. For example, that SWAT, is it right that if an event like hostage taking occurs, it will also be the time for them to practice?
Truly, it is not easy to handle things like this. People only learn if it’s already too late. This should mark the government for now to learn from this.
For me it is a major gaffe for the SWAT for making the assault rescue and having a slow entrance of the bus. Knowing that they have crash practice, they should’ve given back the task to the negotiators. Maybe by that, there will be lesser chances of damages. They should never put in the lives of the helpless victims inside that bus.
However, it happened and can never be turned back to undo the mistakes. It ended tragically for the victims, for the people of the Philippines, for all of us. All we can do now is to start to move on and start to think how we can regain the image we had before.