From the Australian. The writer’s style may seem harsh to some, but to me, it’s the style that fits, and it’s all said like it should be:

Emma-Kate Symons
September 03, 2010

THE Philippines, faced with global shame and humiliation after the deaths of eight Hong Kong tourists because of its spectacularly inept handling of the Manila hostage crisis, is doing what is does so well: playing the victim.

A week of breast-beating and emotional mea culpas has given way to angry defensiveness. The sullen collective reflex in the aftermath of this embarrassing confirmation of all the worst stereotypes of The Philippines as a lawless, chaotic nation of rank incompetents is to play the nationalist anti-Chinese card in reaction to the fury of Hong Kong, where 80,000 rallied this week demanding answers after the fiasco.

International experts in hostage dramas said the police response during the 12-hour stand-off was wrong on multiple fronts, including inadequate equipment and training; failing to seal off the siege area from media and public view (one bystander was injured by a stray bullet); failing to quickly satisfy the gunman’s demands; and bringing in his brother to negotiate

Heaping insult upon outrage, Philippines police and “gore tourists” were shown on social media sites smiling in happy snaps in front of the bloodied and shattered tourist bus that became the tomb of entire families on holiday in Manila last week.

The driver of the bus, suspected of having been in cahoots with the hostage taker – disgruntled former police captain Rolando Mendoza – has gone missing with his family, in another example of police incapacity to carry out their most basic tasks.

Most appallingly, Mendoza enjoyed national hero status, his coffin draped in the Philippines flag at his funeral attended by more than a thousand mourners.

A swag of opinion makers and columnists, parliamentarians and Filipinos writing on blogs and social media are turning the whole drama, Philippines-style, into a kitsch telenovella tragedy where they are unjustly suffering from Chinese bullying and arrogance, following the cancellation of official visits and the souring of diplomatic relations.

The histrionics are drowning out the minority calling for a calm, clear-eyed look at the rottenness at the core of The Philippines’ police, government and media.

Not enough voices are decrying a sick public culture that banalises violence and murder, applauds the armed and dangerous macho men who try to take on the “system”, and prefers the beauty pageant circus of Miss Philippines reaching the top 15 of Miss Universe to a wholesale examination of the national conscience, and concrete steps to prevent such a tragedy happening again.

Currying populist favour, senator Kiko Pangalinan said while he did not personally agree with the swathing of Mendoza’s casket in the national flag, “there is no law that explicitly bans the use of the flag in such a manner, and therefore we will have to respect the individual freedoms of our people”.

Just to hammer home the oft-noted “cultural differences” between The Philippines, a Christian country with democratic aspirations, and godless, authoritarian China, he added:

“We ask for China’s understanding in that we live under different systems, and what may be prohibited and banned in their nation may not be so in ours.”

The senator echoed widespread Filipino justifications of the widespread callousness towards the dead and injured as their Christian culture of “accepting God’s will” and moving on.

Columnist William Esposo in The Philippine Star went further, saying: “China should be the last to posture as if they hold a candle to us when it comes to preventing tragedies”, and recalling the 2005 murder of Philippines businessman Emmanuel Madrigal and his daughter by an axe-wielding madman in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.

“Did a Chinese official apologise to the Madrigal family, The Philippines government or the Filipino people for their failure to protect Filipino tourists in one of the most visited sites in their capital? Where, then, do they get the gall and the temerity to disrespect us and our President due to a similar incident?

“How come our media pander to all these violations of protocol, baseless attacks and arrogance of Chinese officials? Have our media been secretly bought by the Chinese for them to espouse the Chinese line like this?”

Yesterday, a story in the leading Manila newspaper The Inquirer – headlined “Enough already” – pointed out that while “we ask forgiveness and condole with the Hong Kong families” and await the Aquino administration investigation, “we now say enough to the breast-beating.

“We are in solidarity with the women and men who offer prayers . . . but we see no point in prostrating ourselves further, or in insulting The Philippines government as though in a continuing kowtow. We will not be forced into a sackcloth-and-ashes pose.”

Such hogwash, redolent of familiar fatalistic, dolourist distortions of Catholic notions of sin and personal responsibility, is once again allowing a societal head-in-the-sand mentality to prevail in a nation that thinks saying sorry many times should be enough.

The reactions to the televised crisis have been severe, with immediate cancellations of thousands of hotel bookings and package tours to island getaway Boracay.

Aware that he is haemorrhaging credibility and authority so soon after his euphoric inauguration, President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino has pleaded with the press and police to “shut up” and stop offending the Chinese.

But the defiant reaction in The Philippines is to turn its back on reality and take refuge in economic patriotism and racist nationalism.

It is quite a feat and will certainly do nothing but long-term damage to this troubled nation.

===========

Note from poster: The writing is on the wall. Shame on us if we don’t heed.

By Kimboy F.A. Uy

(published with permission from the author, first disseminated through his Facebook note)

When you were inaugurated as my country’s president, you said:

KAYO PO ANG BOSS KO. (You are my boss.)

With barely three months in service, you have showed me a very dismal performance. I am disappointed.

I never liked you. I never wanted you to become president. In fact, to vote for you never became a choice. But what is more hateful at this point is that you are giving me all the reasons why I should not regret not liking you, not wanting you to become president, and not voting for you.

Personally, I do not think that I should expect a lot from you since you do not owe me a vote. And hence you can count my criticism and satisfaction as dispensable. But how about the 15 million others? Are theirs as dispensable as mine?

I have a lot of questions. And as your boss, I demand you to answer them. No smirking and no stupid excuses. Just clear-cut answers.

ON YOUR [IN]CAPABILITY

Why did you not save that bus full of innocent lives when you have all the power in your disposition to do so? Where were your high officials who could have dealt with the situation, if you think you could not? You have served the Committee of Public Order and Safety during the time you were in Congress. [Did you even serve it at all?] Then why did I not see neither public order nor safety last Monday?

Why did you not censor the media when you thought in the first place that it needs control? Press freedom, I get that. Eight innocent lives, how do you actually explain?

ON YOUR [AB/PRE]SENCE

Where were you? If you say you were in a closed-door meeting, why did you take so long? If that meeting was really about the situation, why did it still end in that tragic accident? While your presence does not necessarily guarantee the resolution of the ordeal, your absence was definitely no help either, if it had not made the matters worse.

But whether your presence could have made the matter the same or better, one point is clear. Your participation in that drama could have made a different ending. Possibly even better.

Indifference: Smiling when you should be sad, serious, and senstive to Chinese sentiments

ON YOUR INDIFFERENCE

Why did you let the rampage result in a bloodbath of 8 Chinese nationals? Are they dispensable to you because you did not get votes from them? Which puts me into thinking, if you can live not giving the good service deserved of those who voted for you, all the more can you ignore those who did not. So can you definitely ignore those who never will.

When you were inaugurated, together with 80 other countries, China’s delegation was be led by National People’s Congress Vice Chairman Yan Junqi. Now tell me, can you still say that you were worthy of attention? If you have been indifferent to a country as big as China, how about the 80 others?

ON YOUR [IN]ACTION

Why did you not take HK CE Donald Tsang’s call? What is too difficult in answering a mobile phone and saying “Hey you’re people are held hostages in a bus and are about to die but I think it is not until I let my incompetent policemen storm it so you can sit back, relax, and let the rampage unfold in your TV screen, REAL-TIME.” Or at the very least, what is too difficult in ordering one of your pawns in your chessboard to send the message across? Not having to wait for them to find out from your nosy media men who reported things blow-by-blow and who, if any, share the blame.

At close to midnight, you acted. You showed yourself in front of the whole Philippines and the world and excused your incapable police. Lack of guns. Lack of tactics. But you did not admit your lack of action. On August 24, you declared the next day [August 25] as National Day of Mourning. Why only then? Because HK had already done theirs? To show that “at least” we did?

ON YOUR AFOOLOGY

You said you were sorry for what have happened. But what made the matter resort to the worst scenario in the first place? Was it not partly your fatal incapability to delegate your people and employ your powers as president? With some smirks, one and two, you said that you are sorry for what happened. But where was sincerity? Did it hide behind your smiles? Because it was never heard in your messages. Not even in your actions.

You made yourself look like a fool in public. You made your people look like fools. Now we are the laughing stock of the world. They have called us monkeys, they have called us subservient dogs. But all you do is to give them reasons to continue doing so. All you do is to prove them that by being a president, we really are but monkeys and subservient dogs. When I was in the university, I came to know who Plato is. Do you know him? Did you know him? He said:

Justice means keeping a just order. Everybody should do what he does best and stay out of everybody else’s business. If every citizen does what he is assigned to do, not because he is ordered to do it, but because he enjoys doing it, justice will reign. Citizens won’t harm each other and the state will flourish because, on the one hand, justice leads to harmony and unity, while injustice, on the other hand, leads to sedition and revolution.

Sleeping on the job?

Have you been giving us the justice that we deserve? Are you doing what you do best and staying out of everybody else’s business? Are you doing your job as a president not because you are ordered to do it but because you enjoy doing it? If so, then why are people harming each other and the state is not flourishing? Why is there no justice and unity? Are we leading to sedition and revolution?

Do not get me wrong. I love you as a person (read: I love all persons) because I have been taught to love and not to hate. But to love you as a president is something that is difficult for me to do. I love you as a person so I want you to do something that you do best, something that you will enjoy doing. And being president, it seems, is not what it is.

Do not get me wrong. I love my country (read: I love all countries) because I have been taught to love my family and my neighbors. But to love my country with you heading it is something that is difficult for me to do. I love my country that is why I am doing this, I am saving it at least its face if there is even something left for me to save. I am starting to fear that the day might come when the only reason why I love my country is because this is my country and nothing else.

When you were elected, let me just remind you, you embodied hope. With and from the 7,107 islands of this archipelago, you embodied unity. And that is why 15 million voted for you. Have they voted wrongly? Or have the 20 million others who did not choose you voted rightly? Only you can say. But we need not another word from you, we need a lot of [pragmatic] actions.

My last request: Use your position wisely. With that, I mean you should do action equipped with the deepest understanding of things. It is because when you do not understand what you are doing that things go astray. If you have to take extra time for that, then do so. Why should not you? You are the person tasked to do that. As how we have expected the policemen to do police work because that is what they have been assigned to do.

Let not our 7,107 islands remain a mere archipelagic territory they call monkey country. Make it a human nation. Let not our 90 million citizens remain subservient citizens. Make them proud and dignified nationals.

Never settle for what is “least” and never excuse yourself by saying “we cannot do anything anymore”. A lot of us are already contemplating on our being Filipino. Please be reminded that in order for us to live, we need not only the basic food, clothing, shelter, and water. We also need our dignity and sense of being people. Unite us. After all, that was the only thing that I know you promised to do.

I never liked you. I never wanted you to become president. In fact, to vote for you never became a choice. But please, prove me, and 20 million others, wrong. Why? Kasi KAMI ANG BOSS MO (We are your boss).

With all due respect,

KFAU

26.08.2010

If a promise you don't keep, it will haunt you in your sleep. And as you lie beneath your quilt, you will have a conscience full of guilt.

Since the Quirino Grandstand hostage standoff, most Filipinos have cried out declaring to the international community how one nation can never be punished for the sin of supposedly one man. Rolando Mendoza, according to certain people, acted upon reasons only described to be selfish and nothing more. Names have been called out while fingers have also been pointed in all directions as government officials try to take each other out in their own battle. What they are trying to do within their own self-destructing circle is actually seen in a larger nationwide scale. The general public pay too much attention in deciding how it is supposed to clean its hands off the mess one guy created. It does not matter how it is executed, just as long as it can never be associated with it. It can not fathom being held accountable for what had happened. I think that is what it seeks above everything else.

It is one of the pressing problems the Philippines has today, but that is not all there is to it. Let us look at honesty and sincerity. Just like thousands have witnessed a flaw in the current administration, there is also a kink in these two widely taught values. Almost 100 thousand people from Hong Kong rallied around the city crying foul over the mishandling of our government in every issue. The bulk and weight of the symbolic march is greater than what is expected simply because I knew they have quit giving our government any credit. They do not trust it. If the administration had been more firm in its policies (which was supposed to start with a better management of the crisis), the impact of being able to arouse the number of people in a different land against one man would not have escalated to that degree. It may not look unusual to the blind eye, but once it has been given enough thought, it is really something. Imagine igniting a people power not on Philippine soil, not along EDSA, and definitely not for anyone on the Aquino side, but from one Aquino? Wow.

One day after the hostage crisis, pictures of local cops having their pictures taken in front of the crime scene began sprouting in social networking sites. These no-good egocentric officers in blue uniforms belittled the power of communication we have today. The tagging frenzy spread like wildfire across the web. While that idiotic move further sank the image of their agency, it also heightened the anger of the people of Hong Kong who were more than ready to blow up any minute. About a week later, proudly on the front page of a broadsheet we can obviously not miss those exact uniforms holding, wait, what’s that? Flowers? Are they serious? Didn’t they mean to bring a camera instead? They must be kidding, right? One day they are happy tourists, and then grief-stricken the next. Not that there is anything wrong with it, but when they have done something so foolish to cause an uproar, it is difficult to validate the truthfulness of succeeding actions. I am aware they are not the same people involved, but each one of them, as long as they wear that uniform, represent the whole police force.

I tried walking on the victims’ shoes and wouldn’t even care now if they offered flowers or not. It doesn’t matter anymore at this point. They have shown their true colors. Everything else is a stunt to calm me down, if I were them.

The president also took his Facebook page down after realizing he can not handle all the criticisms. What did he expect after creating an online profile visible to the public? He wanted to prove how “transparent” his government is and so this was a brainchild of that. I think for the entire six years of his term he only anticipated countless numbers of sweet words flooding his page. He could have done just what he has always done in front of the media crew, smile. It’s easy: =) See? That’s not hard to type at all. That shutdown created more buzz than what he could have avoided if he let things be. The page is no different from forums and blogs whose members are basically saying the exact same thing. It hurt his reputation as being an honest person because it seemed like there were comments which could be true that he didn’t want many to know about.

Hong Kong makes all the difference. We are such suckers for what it offers us. The travel time, the bargain prices, the beautiful weather. There are a lot of things we can like about it, and none we can think of not to like. The banners displayed all over the metro how the country is very sorry for the events that have occurred may mean something more than just that. There could be a subliminal message even disguised in tiny symbols pleading them to take us back. It’s one of our top destinations in vacations for goodness’ sake. It has become part of our own culture to fly there at least once in our lifetime. We can not bear living life without it. Voila! Here comes the apologizing and tears fresh from the printing machine. Do not mistake me for someone who does not care. I do. And I am sorry. Let me post this question: Just how legit is our remorse, really?

Now I am not talking about the honesty and sincerity of our *cough* Commander-in-chief. Give us a break. He has mentioned it over and over again since his supporters begged him to run. It was the highlight of his administration for all we know. Yes, WAS. Not anymore. This is different. Those two words have been tarnished. You know, how a brand new pair of white sneakers is now drenching with rain mud. Same keywords, but different circumstances. Those advocates will, of course, continue to deny such claims.

Have you heard of smiling as a defense mechanism for lying? I’m just saying.

It’s a non-verbal cue, in fact. Again, I’m just saying.

UPDATE (9/3/10): Moderators have kept the Noynoy page up and running again, but are restricting comments for now I’m told.

There are many ways to try and talk with President Noynoy Aquino’s supporters. Unfortunately, none of them works. They are so caught up with their own narrow view of what is good and evil that they cannot see beyond their flawed reasoning.

While most of us already knew from the beginning that it was just a matter of time before the true extent of President Noynoy Aquino’s incompetence was revealed, many, if not all of his supporters are genuinely quite surprised by P.Noy’s falling out with the Chinese community as a result of how he handled the recent hostage drama involving deceased sacked ex-policeman, Rolando Mendoza and the eight slain Chinese tourists.

The reason for the falling out is quite simple. Because P.Noy does not really have leadership and diplomatic skills, he has ruined our country’s reputation with Hong Kong and mainland China over a situation that could have been resolved if P.Noy had enough sensitivity towards other people. It seems though that this fact is too hard for his supporters to comprehend because they keep making excuses for P.Noy as if he was a child.

To give everyone an accurate picture of the extent of the fallout: About 20 Hong Kong legislators recently led a crowd of 80,000 Hong Kong residents to gather at an urban park for a short ceremony honouring the dead before setting off on a march to the central financial district. Some human rights Chinese lawyers are even claiming that what happened in Manila to the Chinese tourists is equivalent to what happened to the Americans during 9/11. The tragedy is too devastating for them to accept especially since they know it could have been prevented.

To quote an excerpt from president of the Legislative Council Jasper Tsang’s address to the crowd, “Today’s protest expresses our deep mourning and our strong desire for the Philippine government to take the matter seriously,” and this from lawmaker Cheung Man-kwong: “That 80,000 people can show up in such a short period of time—it shows the anger and unity of the Hong Kong people.”

Who would have thought that P.Noy Aquino, the son of the people power icon herself, the late former president Cory Aquino, could inspire people power in another country? Unfortunately, the gathering of this massive crowd was not in his honour. In fact, if P.Noy had any decency left, he should realize that his blunder is enough reason for him to step down and resign from his post. Quitting the presidency may be the only way to fix the now strained relationship between the Philippines and China. It could potentially be seen as a genuine step towards rectifying his mistake.

There are currently 120,000 Filipinos working in Hong Kong, the ramifications of the diplomatic tensions is so great that there are some who actually fear for their life. There are even reports that a few Filipinos working in Hong Kong have lost their jobs because their employers sacked them in an apparent reaction to the tragic events.

Not only will our tourism industry suffer because of the tragedy, moneyed Filipinos will now feel more self-conscious about going to Hong Kong and China for fear of reprisals from local Chinese whose already low regard for Filipinos has gone even lower.

Looking for Divine intervention

Noynoy’s supporters’ make believe world is now falling apart faster than they can flash the “L”-sign at the Chinese people. They are at a loss as to how to salvage P.Noy’s tattered reputation with the international community. Some are using the old trick of accusing P.Noy’s critics of acting like vultures or taking advantage of the situation. Others are quick to point out China’s human rights abuses at Tiananmen Square in the past or China’s manufacturing scandals like the poisoned infant milk incident, or even worse, comparing the murders of some Filipinos in China in 2005 by a crazed lunatic with the recent deaths of the eight Chinese tourists in the hands of hostage taker Mendoza and the PNP. Indeed, Filipinos, especially those who support losers like P.Noy have no personal accountability and are incapable of inward reflection. This is precisely the reason why they always need someone to blame.

Still, many more of P.Noy’s supporters are now reverting to religion or God for answers. They are asking everyone to just pray for God’s help to make everything right. It’s not that there is anything wrong with that. I just find it strange that instead of trying to accept the recent events as proof that P.Noy lacks leadership skills and has zero diplomatic abilities just as they were told before the election, his supporters are now claiming that God must have a plan or else he wouldn’t let this happen. P.Noy supporters are like walking disclaimers, really. In their mind, they always rationalise things in a way that gives them an escape clause — like looking or latching on to a divine being. This is especially evident when they fail to understand what is going on. Never mind that it is they, staunch Aquino supporters, who pushed for an Aquino presidency in the first place and not God.

Some of the messages from P.Noy’s supporters on a few public forums discussing the recent events, particularly the incompetence of the Philippine government, would have you read:”Let’s just pray to God instead of criticizing P.Noy. I am sure God has a plan for us. I do not want to question God’s plans.” Their attitude is quite frustrating because the tragedy is already presenting an opportunity for everyone to realize their mistake over choosing an incompetent leader like P.Noy but they still won’t hear of it. One can be forgiven for saying that they are such sore losers — delusional even. This goes to show that in the next election, it is a guarantee that they will vote for another loser again.

Praying certainly can’t do any harm but praying alone won’t solve this crisis. In fact, Filipinos have been praying for so long to the point that it seems that that is all they are capable of doing. Never mind that God gave them an intellect to use, and never mind that God has been telling them in so many ways that they should use a bit more critical analysis in choosing a leader every election.

P.Noy’s supporters need to accept their mistake instead of making silly excuses. They need to accept their mistake of voting for an incompetent leader like P.Noy. If we follow the logic in what they are saying, that God allowed this to happen for a reason, then it is crystal clear what God’s reason is for everyone to heed:

Filipinos should vote with their heads and not their emotions in the next election.

This is an opportunity for all Filipinos to unite. It is an opportunity for everyone to turn their backs on decisions that are just shots in the dark — like that of electing someone who just has a popular name like Aquino. It should be plain obvious to them now that P.Noy’s lack of experience or expertise does not help him make the necessary decisions in critical situations. As the head of state, experience is not something that can be served on a silver platter to P.Noy when he needs it.

Generally speaking, people don’t learn much when their lips are moving. Regrettably, this saying is chiefly applicable to P.Noy’s supporters. P.Noy’s supporters did not learn much even before the election because they just kept chanting yellow slogans like, “Noynoy has integrity” or “Noynoy is not corrupt” over and over. No one from the true Aquino supporters or even those who just voted because of his high ranking in the survey heeded the warnings given by genuinely concerned citizens about the risks of having him in Malacanang. Like someone who had been possessed or been under a spell, P.Noy’s supporters bought the story line that “The presidency is Noynoy’s destiny” perpetuated by none other than Noynoy Aquino’s handlers themselves. Everyone seems normal until you get to know them. P.Noy is definitely not your average politician, now that we know his lack of capacity to lead. He is one of a kind, and that’s not even in a good way.

There are many ways to try and talk with President Noynoy Aquino’s supporters. Unfortunately, none of them works. Even the sight of 80,000 Chinese nationals rallying in Hong Kong is not enough to convince them they are wrong. Clearly, there is very little hope that Filipinos will unite, not until the majority is mature enough or wise enough to admit their mistakes.

In the aftermath of the tragedy that claimed the lives of 8 innocent foreign tourists who made the one mistake of ignoring their friends’ advice that the Philippines is not a safe country (as is the usual refrain in Hong Kong and everywhere outside of the Philippines) and generously came over to spend their vacation money to contribute to the economy of a country known for low-standards, laziness, sloppiness, and making excuses, the eyes of the international community fell on one man, the man touted by the devious oligarchs and millions of ignorant Filipinos as the “Hope of the Nation,” the son of Heroes who “would not let us down” – or so it was claimed: Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III, known by his nickname “Noynoy.”

Hong Kongers have denounced Noynoy as the "Smiling Dog"

Who in the international community would not, in his right mind, look to the President of the Philippines for answers? This was, after all, a high profile international incident involving the residents of the special administrative region which has not only been the favorite urban weekend getaway of many members of the Philippines’ rich and famous, but more importantly has also been the employment site of more than 150 thousand Filipino domestic helpers and white-collar expats. Besides, it is usually the duty of a country’s highest official to be involved in all highly critical major incidents and emergencies, such as natural calamities and yes, even high profile hostage situations. That’s the very bare minimum. But this was not just any ordinary high profile hostage situation. This was an international incident.

Looking back at the events surrounding the incident and after it, practically everything about Noynoy’s involvement or lack thereof was wrong. Very wrong.

Mendoza, peeking through the bus window

Noynoy had made absolutely no effort to take an active interest in the case, never mind that it was a high profile hostage-taking scenario involving foreigners. From that alone, Noynoy should have dropped everything else in order to ensure that this incident would end up resolved with all hostages surviving. As many others have correctly pointed out, there is no need for Noynoy to have involved himself with micro-managing the hostage negotiations or subsequent rescue operations. But if only he had dropped everything he was doing at the time and put real effort into ensuring that the appropriate high-level officials were gathered together, given all the express approval and authority to do what needed to be done, and appointed high-level stakeholders as well as an overall high-level ground commander with the relevant authority to be able to give the hostage-taker the impression that his demands were being met, the incident would have easily concluded with the freeing of all of the hostages unharmed.

By all counts, international security experts all refer to this incident as having had an extremely high chance of a speedy and successful resolution when it began – if only it was handled properly and was supported by the highest authorities. It was, after all, just about a piece of paper and having members of the national police hierarchy talking to him and assuring him that he had his job back. It wouldn’t have really mattered if his job reinstatement had been made up, he’d have let the hostages go.

But because the policemen involved in the negotiations were from the nearest local precinct and the skilled negotiators were at the national headquarters at Camp Crame, the quality of the local precinct negotiators caused the negotiations to drag on, ending in the tragedy.

Busy in a meeting? Maybe sleeping!

Unfortunately, Noynoy’s Failipino excuse of “business as usual” was extremely lame, unacceptable, smacks of immaturity, and points to the inability to determine priorities. Noynoy unfortunately had the childish audacity to claim that he was paying attention to more important matters such as the national budget. However, this clearly proves beyond reasonable doubt the man’s extreme incompetence as he is unable to distinguish between Urgent versus Important. He probably could argue that discussing the national budget is “more important” than just another hostage-taking incident as the budget involves the lives of millions of people – or so he may think. But he totally ignored the fact that budget discussions, while important, are not as urgent as a hostage-taking incident obviously because people’s lives are at risk in the latter. Does a one day delay in discussing the national budget result in the loss of lives? Well, not dealing with the hostage crisis has obviously resulted in deaths! Worse, since this was an international incident, diplomatic ties were at risk. Isn’t it obvious that something like this should have been classified as both important and extremely urgent?

It’s in the aftermath that we all find out that not only were ties with the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and by extension, ties with the People’s Republic of China at risk, it actually turns out that ties with the United Kingdom as well as Canada were at risk as well. Two of the hostages released unharmed held British passports, while an entire family of five among those who remained on the bus held Canadian passports. 3 of those 5 Canadian-Chinese family members were among the hostages who were killed in the incident.

Obviously, Noynoy did not see anything wrong with continuing on with his “budget discussions” while the incident was still easily solvable while it was still early, and it is obvious to everyone by his compete absence from issuing statements during the incident showed that he was clearly not in charge.

Since Noynoy did not take overall charge, Vice-Mayor Isko Moreno went all the way to QC to get a document that would appease Mendoza

If Noynoy had stepped up to the plate to take overall responsibility early on, he could have easily delegated the overall management of the entire operations to a high-level official like DILG Secretary Jesse Robredo, and given him authority to request assistance from the Department of Defense. That duly-designated and authorized high-level official would have then been able to bring together the best minds as far as hostage crisis resolution is concerned, and could have requested immediate assistance from the office of the Ombudsman (in fact, just coming up with a fake document might have worked!) and other high profile officials of the Philippine National Police to prepare a letter of reinstatement and all other relevant documents that would have, at least on paper, met the hostage-takers’ demands, thereby giving him a good reason to free all hostages at once, and he could have easily been dealt with *after* the hostages’ lives were secured.

With such high-level sponsorship, whoever is designated to act as the overall ground commander will more easily have all the resources he needs to get the job done. The overall coordination would have been comprehensive, it wouldn’t have been messy, and everything would have been fast. Instead, the obvious lack of coordination and overall sponsorship from above meant that the ill-equipped local city government of Manila was put in charge of what was essentially supposed to have been a high-level national concern. Manila Vice-Mayor Isko Moreno, for instance, had to go all the way to Quezon City to speak with the Ombudsman just to get a piece of paper that was meant to placate the hostage-taker, but if Noynoy had been involved and had given someone like Jesse Robredo overall supervision, he could have easily notified the Ombudsman about the need for such early on and once that document was prepared and signed, it then could have been sent straight to the hostage-taker, causing him to free the hostages unharmed.

Recreated footage: Mendoza watched live news on bus TV, no media censorship

Moreover, if only Noynoy had the sense and leadership skills to take overall responsibility early on, clear-cut directives and parameters could have been given out that would have prevented the rambunctious, irresponsible, and extremely incompetent members of Philippine Mass Media from getting in the way of the successful resolution of the case. A selective media black-out could have been set-up, so that focus of the cameras would have been purely on the bus and not on the crowds that amassed near the makeshift police command center while negotiations were underway. If an assault had to be done by a properly-selected elite team of well-trained operatives, media could have then stopped live coverage and then merely relied on replays of earlier footage to broadcast on the air as was done by the more professional CNN, BBC, and Al-Jazeera.

Unfortunately, such directives cannot come from low-level police officers lacking appropriate authority and top-level sponsorship. They cannot come from mere members of the police force. The only person who can request media to give precedence to the hostage negotiators and rescue operations and order the incompetent Philippine Media to exercise prudence is none other than the highest official in the land: President Noynoy.

Alas, Noynoy did not care one bit about this hostage incident.

He obviously does not understand the concept of command responsibility, nor does he understand how to prioritize issues and incidents.

Commandos of the Army's Elite Light Reaction Force were on standby, but Noynoy was hands-off so they were not chosen for the assault

Instead of doing what needed to be done, Noynoy essentially left a small-time police precinct that was nearest to the scene of the crime all alone to fend for itself in handling what was a high-profile international incident that required the most elite teams available, something that Noynoy’s position as President and Commander-in-Chief could have decided on. In contrast to seeing an extremely well-trained and seasoned elite strike force sporting combat fatigues, goggles and gas-masks, and equipped with all the necessary tools, the whole World watched in horror as a clueless and rag-tag horde of ill-trained traffic enforcers and police desk clerks attempted to storm the ill-fated bus.

It was this kind of hands-off indifference exhibited by Noynoy that forced the local city government and one of its under-equipped police precincts to make do with the little that it had without active top-level executive sponsorship, when clearly, top-level coordination and executive sponsorship at the national level was precisely what would have spelled the difference between life & safety versus death & harm. Alas, the Noynoy Aquino administration has turned out to be exactly how antipinoy.com and numerous other pundits correctly predicted it to be: a complete Failure.

The Noynoy Aquino administration, consistent with the character of the president at its helm, has been characterized by extreme incompetence, an extreme lack of intelligence, a lack of initiative in taking the lead, an utter lack of coordination, a lack of accountability, and worst of all, an extreme vindictiveness & predisposition to blame the more competent economy-focused previous administration for the 8 deaths that Noynoy’s own negligence had caused to happen.

Buck-passing and Noynoy’s Usual Blame-game

Coloma the Idiot says: "Arroyo is to blame"

True to form, the Noynoy Administration, represented by the chimp-faced Sonny Coloma, a member of the 3-headed hydra responsible for such factual atrocities as Noynoy’s inaugural speech and his later State of the Nation Address, immediately spared no opportunity to desperately shift the blame over to Dr. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, PhD for the botched hostage negotiations and rescue operation. Moreover, in the press conference that immediately followed the aftermath of the tragedy, Noynoy Aquino – taking his cue from the police force’s stand – surprisingly took a swipe at his own creator and key sponsor, the rambunctious and irresponsible Philippine Mass Media, blaming it for not properly practicing self-censorship in airing live footage. This is perhaps the only time since Noynoy’s inauguration that the man actually showed some signs of intelligence.

The unprofessional and rambunctious Philippine Mass Media, on the other hand, blamed the police for not giving them direct guidelines and ground rules on censorship.

ABS-CBN's Maria Ressa blamed the police for not providing media with censorship guidelines

Unfortunately, none of them were pointing at the right direction.

Sir Donald “Bow-tie” Tsang, Chief Executive of Hong Kong S.A.R. as well as the top hierarchy of the People’s Republic of China placed the blame squarely on President Noynoy Aquino and his staff.

After all, while both the local Manila Police as well as Philippine Media had their faults – the latter clearly being more culpable and more directly responsible for the deaths of the first hostages to die between the two, only one person had the authority to effectively force the Philippine Mass Media to comply with live-video censorship directives as well as provide the Philippine National Police with its much-needed executive sponsorship as well as coordination-support with other offices, that could have helped it negotiate the hostages’ release more effectively. That one person was the President of the Philippines.

President Noynoy’s lack of interest in at least taking overall responsibility for the coordination of all parties involved was precisely what got innocent hostages killed and others severely wounded.

Blood is on the hands of Benigno S. Aquino III, yet he and his minions such as the idiot-monkey Sonny Coloma chose to be childish and immature by pointing fingers at the previous GMA Administration. Worse, numerous similarly misguided cretins like Kayat Natin’s vindictive and hateful key cry-baby Harvey Keh equally did the same.

Kayat Natin's Harvey Keh: Another deluded idiot from the Yellow Horde

Len Bautista-Horn, Dr. Arroyo’s extremely competent aide-de-camp, issued a solid rebuttal exposing the sheer incompetence of the Noynoy administration. She cited the high-profile hostage-taking incidents that occurred during Dr. Arroyo’s Presidency which essentially involved the same crop of policemen and operatives during the previous administration as with the current one, with the only difference being the quality of the top-level leadership.

If Noynoy took charge, he could have chosen an Elite Force, not an ill-trained horde of traffic cops & police clerks

While then-President Arroyo proactively took charge of overall coordination and was decisive in choosing ground commanders, coordinating with various offices, and issuing directives, President Noynoy Aquino was lazy, hands-off, reactive, indecisive, cowardly, stupid, and not serious with ensuring the safety of the hostages.

Noynoy’s major major booboos

While Noynoy and his uncoordinated horde of minions have desperately tried to pass the buck, there are few things that he simply cannot blame on anyone else but himself. No amount of passing the buck or making excuses by him or by his moronic supporters, sycophants, and apologists like Conrado de Quiros & William Esposo will exculpate Noynoy for his negligence, lack of initiative and inability to take responsibility for a tragedy that his powers as president could have averted.

Lack of initiative in taking charge

An angry Hong Konger denounces Noynoy

Firstly, as the August 23 hostage-taking incident had clearly involved foreigners, Noynoy should have immediately dropped everything else in favor of this extremely urgent situation, and could have called a meeting with key members of the DILG (Department of Interior and Local Government) and PNP (Philippine National Police) as well as key members of the DND (Department of National Defense) and the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines). That way, the hostage negotiations would have been handled from a national perspective and the best and most experienced of all hostage negotiators would have been assigned to handle the negotiations. Alas, Noynoy did not do this.

Case of the Missed Calls

Was Tsang unable to reach Noynoy because he was with her having an uninterruptible event?

Secondly, as this hostage-taker had taken a bus filled with tourists from Hong Kong, Noynoy should have been proactive in immediately calling up the office of HKSAR Chief Executive Sir Donald Tsang. There should have been no delay in this, as it would be only right that the representative of the HK People be immediately made aware that he, Noynoy, was on top of the situation, and was working to ensure a speedy and successful resolution to the incident. Unfortunately, Noynoy thought that whatever he was doing at the time was more important than attending to the incident and informing Sir Donald Tsang about it. Where exactly was Noynoy anyway?

(Was he really in a Budget meeting? Or was he with his girlfriend Shalani Soledad doing something “uninterruptible” and simply couldn’t be disturbed by phone calls at the time?)

Thirdly, as the Hong Kong SAR government had not received any official word from the Office of the Phlippine President at all, Sir Donald Tsang decided to drop protocol and at around 5pm, directly called up Malacañang through its trunklines asking to speak with Noynoy. Apparently, the answer was that Noynoy was busy and couldn’t be disturbed. Now since whoever answered the phone obviously knew that there was an incident going on that involved tourists from Hong Kong, it is clear that the staff member who answered the phone would have either attempted to interrupt Noynoy and hand the phone over to him or at least would have promptly informed him about the call. Tsang appears to have been told that Noynoy would call him back shortly. Noynoy never returned the call.

Fourth, as Donald Tsang never heard anything from Noynoy, he once again decided to call Noynoy. Just as before, Noynoy was unavailable and could not be reached. This clearly made Hong Kong’s Chief Executive get fuming mad over the obvious lack of concern over the incident and the utter disrespect shown to the concerned chief executive whose own constituents’ lives were at risk by ignoring his calls and almost deliberate avoidance of Tsang on the part of Noynoy.

Probable Scenario: Tsang calls Noynoy, Noynoy waves the call off

To put this in perspective, the Office of the President is not like an ordinary household. It is fully-equipped with as many phonelines and modern communications equipment necessary in order to ensure that high-level communications with other chief executives is as convenient as possible. Moreover, the Office of the President is sufficiently staffed with enough people who are supposed to handle calls, especially those coming from important people. It does not seem plausible that a staff member simply chose to ignore the call from Tsang’s office, because quite clearly, staff members are supposed to be trained to document all calls and ensure that they are attended to or that the appropriate call-backs are made.

The only real explanation for Sir Donald Tsang’s inability to get through to Noynoy is obvious: Noynoy was hiding from Bow-tie Tsang. Worse, Noynoy clearly made no effort to call him back. There is absolutely no way for Noynoy to blame Dr. Arroyo for this problem. The blame purely points at no one but himself.

All this is proof of Noynoy’s lack of concern, irresponsibility, inability to face issues squarely, and worst of all, his cowardice.

Case of the Smiling Dog

In addition to the inescapable fact that Noynoy cannot shift the blame as far as his failure to contact Donald Tsang is concerned, Noynoy likewise cannot make up excuses for what is obviously his flippant lack of concern and seriousness in handling this incident as evidenced by his candid facial expressions.

Inspecting the bus, the abnormal Noynoy smiles, thinking everything's all right

Immediately after the incident, Noynoy went over to the site of the tragedy to inspect the bus. Numerous camera crews from local and foreign news agencies caught footage of him smiling the whole time while looking at the scene of the crime. Irony of ironies is that the crime-scene, Quirino Grandstand, is where Noynoy’s term as President of the Philippines began on June 30^th, 2010, and on August 23^rd, 2010, is now the same site where Noynoy’s term as president has found itself at the beginning of its end.

Worse, after the inspection of the bus, Noynoy held a press conference in which he tried explain the reasons for the complete failure of the negotiations and the internationally-embarrassing botched rescue operation. Noynoy was smiling during the entire time!

Not a single hint of seriousness or remorse. No sign of sadness or regret. Not a single sign of effort or a struggle to try to right the wrongs.

No hint of sadness or remorse: The 50 year old autistic child Noynoy, still smiling like a dog at the Press Conference after the Tragedy

Simply put, Noynoy Aquino’s on-screen smiling during his press conference proved beyond reasonable doubt that the footage of him smiling at the crime scene inspection was not a fluke. Worse, it proved that Noynoy Aquino was simply not serious about being involved and on-top of the situation vis-à-vis saving the lives of the hostages that remained on the bus. His extreme lack of concern and his inability to feel remorse or sadness immediately after such a tragic event appears to have validated the numerous charges of his mild autism and mental abnormality.

As a result of all this, Noynoy Aquino is now the most hated man in the World. Yes, the World.

How many Mainland Chinese are there? How many Overseas Chinese are there in addition to those Mainlanders? How many people worldwide were watching the live footage unfold and how saw the utter lack of coordination stemming from the obvious lack of concern and involvement on the part of Noynoy, as proven by his flippant smiling.

Let’s not forget the Canadians. 3 Canadians died, and unfortunately for Noynoy, the news of this tragedy is big in Canada precisely because of the Canadian citizens who were among the hostages. (News is particularly big in Vancouver where a large Cantonese-speaking community of immigrants mainly from Hong Kong lives.)

To add insult to injury, that idiot Noynoy takes everyone for a fool by claiming that his smiling is a sign that he is either frustrated or angry! What kind of fool would actually have the audacity to make such a claim?

The yellow ribbons are for the returning hostages and victims, not for Noynoy!

Worse, not only was he insincere in his first press conference, he was equally insincere when he made an appearance to apologize for the smiling. But when he did so, he was – once again – smiling!

At that point, all hell broke loose.

The entire Chinese-speaking world, the rest of the World, and most of the thinking and intelligent sector of the Philippine populace who were watching the footage as the tragedy unfolded and witnessed his on-screen smiling condemned Noynoy Aquino for the tragedy and for his utter lack of concern. What originally had been tolerance for Noynoy’s previously stupid and ridiculous but mostly harmless gaffes has turned into the extreme and active hatred of a man who would, by his own lack of initiative and concern as well as his inability to empathize with the plight of victims, not just cause extreme and intense embarrassment for the Philippines, but worse, cause the untimely death of innocent people who visited the country as tourists and in so doing were helping to contribute to its economy.

Hong Kongers lash out at Noynoy's photo

It is therefore not surprising that more than a billion people in China, including Hong Kong are clamoring for Noynoy Aquino to be held accountable for his actions (or lack thereof) which led to the tragic deaths of innocent hostages. Almost instantaneously, the Philippines has ceased to be just an international laughingstock but thanks to B.S. Aquino III, the Philippines has now become one of the Worlds’- most hated countries, particularly among predominantly within the Sinosphere: Mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore, and among the huge Chinese community of Malaysia.

We at antipinoy.com totally sympathize with the citizens of the People’s Republic of China and the residents of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region vis-à-vis  their right to be angry and disgusted with the utter incompetence of that colossal idiot who is totally unfit to be President of the Philippines: Benigno Simeon Aquino III.

Lost Advantages, Lost Capital

Hong Kong S.A.R. Chief Executive Sir Donald Tsang has something about him that naturally makes him sympathetic to Filipinos: he’s Roman Catholic.

Roman Catholic Hong Kong Chief Executive

Sir Donald Tsang at a Catholic memorial service for the victims

Sir Donald Tsang, Knight of the British Empire, is a devout Jesuit-educated English-dominant Roman Catholic who faithfully attends mass every morning. As with many Hong Kong Catholics who are active in their respective parishes and often come across or make friends with so many Filipinos who help out in the parishes, Sir Donald Tsang would be a natural ally of Filipinos due to shared Faith. (Exemplified by the findings of the late Dr. Sam Huntington, PhD) It is due to this natural sympathy towards the predominantly Catholic Filipinos that Sir Donald Tsang’s initial message to the people of Hong Kong S.A.R. also included a message of sobriety that emphasized the need to respect the rights of the almost 200,000 Filipinos working in the territory.

However, it is obvious that the ineptitude and incompetence of Noynoy has totally disappointed Tsang, causing an overall diminution in whatever inclination towards sympathy he may have had for the government of the predominantly Catholic Philippines. Such disappointment would especially be evident in deals over the rights of Filipina domestic workers and other issues. (And while the HK government obviously denies that their having recently rejected a request to augment the minimum wage for Filipina domestic helpers has anything to do with the tragedy, it is obvious that it does.)

Sir Donald Tsang’s Catholic connection could have served as an advantage to Filipinos and the Noynoy Aquino administration, but Noynoy totally blew it.

Cojuangco Chinese Connection

Noynoy wasted his Cojuangco Chinese ties

Moreover, it is worth noting that Noynoy’s late mother, former President Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino, was held in extremely high regard in the Chinese-speaking world as well as in countries with large Chinese communities such as in Malaysia on account of her Chinese ancestry – which was thoroughly evidenced by her Chinese looks. This was especially highlighted when, during her term as president, Cory visited Fujian province in order to visit the Xü Clan Association (“Xü”, alternatively spelled as “Hsü” is the Mandarin pronunciation of the Fujianese surname  ”Kho”, often Romanized as “Co” in the Philippines) to trace her “Kho Huang-Ko” roots. This fact totally endeared Cory Aquino to the people of Mainland China as well as numerous overseas Chinese communities such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia.

The extent to which the late former President Cory Aquino was originally very well-respected and acknowledged for her obvious ethnic ties to China – being the descendant of a Southern Chinese immigrant to the Philippines – was evident when the Xinhua News Agency ran a tribute to the late former president right after her death in August 2009 due to cancer. The tribute, which ran in two versions – an English as well as a Chinese version – reminded the people of China and the rest of the World that Cory Aquino was fondly remembered as a foreign president “who openly appreciated her Chinese origin and the first head of state to embark on a “roots-tracing” trip to her ancestral hometown.”

Sad to say, all that positive social capital has totally evaporated now, so that while the Aquino franchise – which was built on Cory’s Chinese ancestry – was originally extremely favorable among the Worldwide Chinese Community, the Chinese now have an extreme hatred of Noynoy, who is known in the Newspapers of the Chinese-speaking world as “Aquino III.” The extent of this hatred of “Aquino III” was in the almost immediate release of an iPhone video game that featured beating the crap out of Noynoy’s face.

This “Hero to Zero” reversal of fortunes is not surprising though. Warning signs were evident long ago including the extremely lackluster performance and absence of any real personal achievements of Aquino III as a private citizen, as a lawmaker (a measly 12 bills, no laws in 9 years!), and as a presidential candidate who had no real platform and who could not articulate a real plan of action without prodding from his running-mate, the brainier and more competent Mar Roxas. Noynoy’s inaugural speech and State of the Nation Address, both utterly devoid of any real policy content or directions on government as well as being filled with numerous factual and numerical errors, as well as the numerous gaffes and signs of absence of cabinet coordination all pointed towards failure. While all these previous gaffes only resulted in embarrassment and made Noynoy the laughingstock of the world, last August 23 was no longer just a joke.

This time, innocent lives were lost. Likewise, ties with the World’s most populous country, the World’s 2nd-largest economy, the emerging superpower with the World’s largest standing military, an emerging key investor in the Philippines and provider of overseas jobs to the Philippines were severely strained.

Aquino III’s presidential career, barely two months after taking office just last June 30th, 2010, is irreversibly going down the tubes.

Mainland Chinese Moral and Material Support for a Noynoy Impeachment Bid

In contrast to the extreme incompetence and cluelessness of Noynoy’s handling of the hostage crisis and worse, his flippant attitude of smiling through his post-crisis press conference, former Philippine president Dr. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, PhD, on the other hand, stepped up to ease tensions with both the governments of Hong Kong S.A.R. and its principal, the People’s Republic of China.

Premier Wen Jiabao: Personal friend of Dr. Gloria M. Arroyo, PhD

In two letters she addressed to both Hong Kong SAR Chief Executive Sir Donald Tsang and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, where she expressed her deepest condolences and sympathies to the Chinese People, Dr. Arroyo stressed that:

“Whoever may be held accountable for the violent turn in the negotiations should be penalized accordingly. This is the only way by which we could truly honor the memory of the victims and give justice to the families in their hour of bereavement.”

If anyone carefully reads between the lines and looks at the bigger picture, this clearly means one thing: Noynoy is Toast.

The letter, which is essentially an assurance to both the Hong Kong S.A.R. Government and the People’s Republic of China that Dr. Arroyo will be fighting for Justice on the side of the Hong Kongers and all Chinese, sends the message to both Hong Kong and Beijing that Dr. Arroyo is the one person they can trust and depend on to support their cause to gain Justice for the victims and their families. Since everyone – especially both the HKSAR and the PROC- knows that Noynoy is ultimately to blame for the incompetence, lack of coordination in the hostage negotiations, and utter lack of interest in seeing it through, thus resulting in the tragic deaths of 8 HK Chinese, there is absolutely no doubt that Dr. Arroyo will have the full support of both the extremely cash-rich and powerful Mainland Chinese and HKSAR governments in getting whoever is ultimately accountable (who else but Noynoy?) penalized accordingly.

Lest Noynoy totally forget, Dr. Arroyo is an intellectual and as such is well-regarded and widely respected all throughout the People’s Republic of China. (The Confucian culture of the Chinese has instilled a reverence for academics, PhD’s, and other intellectuals) Not only does Dr. Arroyo enjoy close and cordial personal friendships and strong Guanxi with the top-level Mainland Chinese leadership due to the numerous mutually-beneficial trade and investment deals that her administration brokered with China, she was also widely admired by the Chinese for standing up to George W. Bush and the USA in 2004, when she was successfully able to get kidnapped Filipino truck driver Angelo de la Cruz freed from his kidnappers in Fallujah by withdrawing Philippine troops stationed in Iraq ahead of their already pre-scheduled withdrawal a few months away.

Former Gov. of Qinghai Province Song Xiuyan idolizes Dr. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, PhD

The Mainland Chinese People admire such kind of leadership as it shows a leader who is willing to put the life of one of her own citizens over and above compliance with the USA’s demands. The Mainland Chinese are actually quite conditioned to assume that their own government would do the same for them, and when they saw this practiced by then-President Arroyo, she instantly won tremendous admiration from them on top of the already positive press she had been continually receiving due to numerous successful high-level trade and investment deals she signed together with the Chinese government.

It is also worth mentioning that former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, PhD is actually the idol and inspiration of hundreds of millions of Chinese women, one among them being China’s second female governor, former Governor Song Xiuyan of Qinghai province – who earlier this year vacated her gubernatorial post after being appointed to head the All-China Women’s Federation, and had named Dr. Arroyo as the female leader she most admired in an interview with china.com in 2005.In the interview, former Governor Song said that she admires former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, PhD because “she not only has the courage and resolution of a political leader, but also the tender feelings of a woman.”

In fact, while the irresponsible and oligarch-sponsored Philippine Mass Media concocted the ZTE-NBN “scandal” – which was nothing more than a case of jealousy and sour-graping among local Filipino companies who had lost the bidding to a more efficient and better-funded Chinese company called “ZTE” (short for Zhongxing Telecommunications Equipment Company) only because that company could provide superior services at lower cost, the Mainland Chinese government and the Chinese People were all aware of the sour-graping and jealousy that were going on. Moreover, the Mainland Chinese are well aware that the Media-invented “scandal” was partly initiated and further blown out of proportion by Dr. Arroyo’s political enemies.

Dr. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, PhD: Widely respected and idolized in the People's Republic of China

To this day, the Chinese Government and the Chinese People themselves continue to be puzzled as to why Dr. Arroyo’s enemies and the equally irresponsible Philippine Media senselessly continue to bring up the ZTE issue when in fact the ZTE deal did not push through when then-President Arroyo ordered the deal halted as soon as noise was being made by losing bidders, sour-grapers, and Dr. Arroyo’s political enemies. The situation, as seen from the eyes of the Mainland Chinese is essentially one of bitter political enemies trying to discredit and destroy one of Mainland China’s Filipino friends and allies, Dr. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, PhD.

Since Noynoy has since loudly declared himself to be Dr. Arroyo’s staunchest enemy, the Mainland Chinese People and their Government – who are fans and supporters of Dr. Arroyo – have real solid reasons to favor Dr. Arroyo over Noynoy:

1. Dr. Arroyo is well-respected by the Mainland Chinese and enjoys cordial personal Guanxi with China’s top leadership. The ZTE scandal was seen by the Chinese as a ploy by Dr. Arroyo’s political enemies to discredit her by destroying the reputation of a Chinese company. Since Noynoy campaigned heavily against Dr. Arroyo and is known in Mainland China to be an enemy of Dr. Arroyo, who will the Mainland Chinese side with? Why, Dr. Arroyo, of course! Moreover, Dr. Arroyo assured both Hong Kong and Beijing that she was going to work hard to get justice for the victims and their families by ultimately penalizing the main person responsible for the mishap: Noynoy.
2. Noynoy bungled the recent hostage crisis by not taking the initiative to take overall charge of the situation while it was early in order to coordinate the different offices and law enforcement agencies to ensure a successful resolution to the crisis. Worse, Noynoy showed absolutely no concern during the entire crisis and in the aftermath, was seen smiling while inspecting the scene of the crime and once again was even more visibly smiling at the post-incident press conference. Noynoy is now extremely hated in Mainland China as well as the rest of the Overseas Chinese Communities.

Anytime soon, while both Hong Kong S.A.R. and Beijing continue to snub the Noynoy administration, it is well expected that Dr. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, PhD will soon be invited to visit Beijing or Hong Kong in her capacity as a private citizen and representative of the Lakas-CMD-Kampi Party to discuss her plans of pursuing all the idiots culpable for the August 23 Tragedy.

The Flippant President: Hated by hundreds of millions of Chinese

It would not be surprising if the extremely cash-rich and powerful government of the People’s Republic of China would donate a hugely substantial amount of cash to provide Dr. Arroyo with a formidable war chest that would allow her and her Lakas-CMD-Kampi to punish Noynoy for his stupidity and incompetence which led to the deaths of 8 Hong Kong Chinese, 3 of whom also happened to hold dual Chinese and Canadian citizenship. This scenario is not at all unthinkable, since the USA actually does this sort of thing all the time. The difference, is that while the USA often uses the CIA and the US military to put similar schemes into effect, the Mainland Chinese are very content to play a more passive role in this, by merely lending support – moral, technological, and financial – to already existing factions which are seen to be sympathetic to their cause in countries of interest,.

As Dr. Arroyo is clearly the leader of such a faction and has continually been unfairly harassed in the Media by the hated Noynoy Aquino and his minions (hated by the Chinese, that is), and her Guanxi and personal friendship with top-level Chinese leaders is solid, there is no doubt that her letter which expresses her sympathy and her commitment to punishing Noynoy, his advisors, and his minions will resonate with the Chinese People. Lakas-CMD-Kampi will soon have an almost inexhaustible war chest that will enable impeachment proceedings against the ultra-incompetent, low IQ, and low EQ Noynoy Aquino to easily push through in both the House and the Senate, which are both dominated by Dr. Arroyo’s personal allies – Juan Ponce Enrile for the Senate and Lakas stalwart (who only “superficially switched to the LP”) Sonny Belmonte for the House of Representatives.

Moreover, this same war chest will easily incapacitate Jejemon Binay, another idiot who foolishly declared his avowed hatred of Dr. Arroyo, thus clearly making him a persona non-grata among the Mainland Chinese Hierarchy, evidenced by the obvious snub he received from the Chinese Government when he thought he and the rest of Noynoy’s delegation could just barge into Beijing uninvited.

The Beginning: Noynoy's Inauguration at the Quirino Grandstand

Tragedy Reveals Noynoy’s Unsuitability for the Presidency: Nowhere to go but Down

Kris Aquino: youngest of Ninoy's and Cory's children, but she still ruined their "good name."

The implications of the Quirino Grandstand Tragedy are apocalyptic for Noynoy’s doomed presidential career. Ever since the smiling dog first declared on national television “I am smiling” in obvious reference to the early election returns back in May, it was clear that Noynoy Aquino’s term would be a tragic failure. It was predicted by numerous critics that Noynoy Aquino was destined to fail as he clearly did not have the competence required and neither did he have a credible economy-focused campaign platform. Instead, he and his handlers continued to keep on harping on his Aquino surname and his illustrious pedigree as the offspring of the late anti-Marcos former senator Ninoy Aquino and the late former president Cory Aquino, promising that despite being grossly incompetent and unproductive as a legislator, being their offspring, Noynoy would be sure not to destroy his “parents’ legacy” – whatever that is supposed to mean.

In fact, the emphatic assurances made to the public by Noynoy’s sycophantic campaign managers and handlers that he would not foul up was based purely on who his parents were, totally ignoring the fact that Noynoy’s own nymphomaniac youngest sister, showbiz celebrity & scandal magnet Kris Aquino – who has had numerous pre-marital sexual relationships mostly with married men, an autistic love child with a much older action star, a public confession of having contracted a sexually transmitted disease with a comedian and ex-basketball player, as well as a troubled marriage with a basketball star 10 years her junior, is also the offspring of both Cory and Ninoy Aquino.

In a previous article addressed directly to Noynoy (“Great Job, Noynoy”), Noynoy’s numerous gaffes  were exposed as were the numerous instances where he would publicize wrong information and misinterpreted data in his speeches. Sadly even after article’s publication, the gaffes continued.

Source of Gaffes: Incompetent Three-headed Monster Media Group Lacks Coordination

Noynoy's Three Headed Media Monster: Lacierda, Coloma, & Carandang

For instance, just recently, Noynoy’s administration had peace talks with the MILF and one of the key results from the discussion between both sides was the need for certain changes to be made in the Philippine Constitution, specifically those regarding the need to shift to Federalism. The negotiators from the side of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines, represented by Attorney Leonen announced that the Noynoy Administration was open to the possibility of charter change as a means to achieve peace in the South.

The morning after the negotiations were held, on August 16th, 2010, the news release regarding this openness to constitutional charter change was released. Immediately, there was some rejoicing on the part of lobbyists who’ve been advocating the need to open up the faulty 1987 Constitution to much-needed amendments that would reflect the needs of the time. Unfortunately, in the afternoon of the day the news release came out, reporters asked one of the three heads of Noynoy’s Media Group, Ricky Carandang, about this development and surprisingly, Carandang responded by saying that the Noynoy administration was not open to constitutional amendments at all and that charter change was of the lowest priority.

That was just another one of the numerous additional gaffes made by the Noynoy administration after the everyday gaffe after gaffe sequence that started long before Noynoy was inaugurated, and sadly, the irresponsible and incompetent Philippine Mass Media (who were mostly rooting for Noynoy to win, after all) did not even call attention to this obvious inconsistency in policy which reveals the absolute incompetence and utter lack of operational coordination among his own staff.

Coloma doubted that Tsang called Noynoy

Worse, after HKSAR Chief Executive Sir Donald Tsang complained that he could not get his phone calls through to Noynoy and worse never had his calls returned, the similarly incompetent monkey-faced Sonny Coloma, one of the heads of Noynoy’s three-headed media hydra implied that Donald Tsang was lying, by questioning whether indeed Donald Tsang really did try calling Noynoy.

This further infuriated an already extremely-disappointed Tsang, whose staff (as well as Beijing’s own staff) had been closely monitoring the news statements coming out of the Philippines in relation to the hostage tragedy.

Almost simultaneously, Ricky Carandang, one of the other heads of the same confused and incompetent Media Group, contradicted Coloma’s idiotic knee-jerk press comment by confirming that indeed calls were received by the President’s staff coming from Tsang’s office in Hong Kong, but that they did not pass on the call because it came in through the trunkline and claims  that it “lacked verification.”

For Pete’s sake, Ricky Carandang! There was an unfolding crisis going on, strict adherence to “protocol” should have been dropped. At the very least, if you weren’t sure that it really was Tsang on the other line, then you still should have immediately told the President, who then should have promptly returned Sir Donald’s call.

Carandang confirmed Tsang called: Coloma wrong

In fact, the Chinese government’s monitoring of relevant news immediately revealed that a Philippine flag was draped on the coffin of the slain hostage-taker and murderer, prompting anger and protests on the side of the Chinese government. Once again, it showed that the Noynoy administration had not been able to proactively issue a directive to the Tanauan, Batangas police to closely guard the criminal’s wake and prevent any embarrassing situation from happening.

One might say that almost every step that Noynoy or his staff makes results in gaffe after gaffe, failure after failure, and embarrassment after embarrassment.

What foreign government would like to deal with an administration that is tragically flawed and totally characterized by failure and incompetence?

Noynoy’s Only Way Out

Both the Hong Kong SAR and the People’s Republic of China clearly do not want to have any further dealings with Noynoy Aquino and his staff. Noynoy’s incompetence and lack of seriousness in dealing with the most important matters regarding life and death are appalling and unworthy of any further attention.

Just recently, 2 Chinese recipients of the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Awards have declined to fly to the Philippines to receive their awards. This is further proof that the Mainland Chinese government, along with Hong Kong SAR, is actively snubbing the Philippines and the Noynoy Administration. So many moronic apologists of the Noynoy administration have tried to put a positive spin on China’s obvious snubbing of the Philippines, citing other things, but there is no other explanation for why many high-level Chinese delegations are either cancelling or indefinitely postponing their trips to the Philippines. Worse, the ill-fated “Diplomatic Team” representing Noynoy Aquino’s administration, led by Vice-President Jejemon Binay and planned to fly to Beijing to meet with top Chinese officials to grovel and apologize to the People’s Republic of China was basically told to just stay home as they are “uninvited.”

Noynoy, you do not mess with China

Lest Noynoy forget, China is practically the USA of the Asian Region. It is not the kind of country you mess with.

With China’s massive currency and gold reserves, China has tremendous financial resources at their disposal. China will do what it needs to do in order to protect not just its own financial and business interests in the Philippines (numerous Chinese companies have come to the Philippines to invest), or the safety of its people (tourist arrivals from China have been picking up since Dr. Arroyo’s term), but its own honor as well.

Noynoy has totally insulted China with his irresponsibility and lack of concern towards the hostage-taking incident and made it worse with his much-publicized on-camera smiling. Noynoy also failed to ensure that the Mendoza family would not be allowed to drape a Philippine flag on his coffin which further infuriated the already angry leaders of both Mainland China and the Hong Kong S.A.R.

He needs to understand that the end of his administration is upon him. The Mainland Chinese (and the HKSAR) will not deal with the Philippines as long as he continues to be President, and other countries who are concerned for their citizens’ safety are likewise wary of Noynoy’s complete absence of any competence, ability, and the requisite serious attitude that often spells the difference between success or failure.

Noynoy, China's leaders are Dr. GMA's friends

Noynoy’s sworn enemy, the far more astute, knowledgeable, and competent Dr. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, PhD who is a known friend of Mainland China’s and HKSAR’s leadership will soon be receiving tons of moral and financial support to make a successful bid to evict the world’s most hated man. Noynoy also needs to remember that while Dr. Arroyo may have disappointed Bush and his fellow Republicans back in 2004 for prematurely withdrawing Philippine troops in Iraq in order to save the life of Angelo de la Cruz, the current US Administration is run by Barack Obama and the Democrats, of which Hillary Clinton is Secretary of State.

Before Noynoy’s inferior brain forgets, Dr. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, PhD was Bill Clinton’s classmate at Georgetown and enjoys cordial ties with both Bill and Hillary Clinton. Moreover, the USA itself does not look kindly upon the way Noynoy handled the hostage incident as well as all the other series of events that transpired afterwards which exposed the Noynoy administration’s lack of direction and inability to provide real leadership. We also should not forget that Canada lost 3 of its citizens too and has a fourth one still struggling for his life.

Don't forget, Noynoy: Bill and Hillary Clinton are Dr. Arroyo's good friends!

It would not be unthinkable that the USA would chip in with China & possibly Canada in toppling the über-incompetent, grossly negligent, and mentally-abnormal Noynoy Aquino who might just put US citizens in harm’s way the same way he did so with Chinese, British and Canadian nationals who were on the ill-fated bus.

There really is no other way for Noynoy, except to ensure that he has at least some form of a graceful exit or strategy that would prevent him from being humiliated in an ouster. The only realistic graceful way out for Noynoy Aquino is for him to immediately push through with charter change.

The MILF, Mindanaoans, Visayans, Ilocanos, Cordillerans, and numerous other groups are asking for it in order to grant meaningful autonomy to their respective regions in the form of Federalism. Ordinary job-seekers and employees are asking for it in the form of the easing of restrictions on foreign investors in order to allow the creation of more jobs.

Graceful “Exit” – Noynoy as purely Ceremonial and Powerless President

And for all Filipinos, Noynoy can save himself in remaining as President of the Republic by shifting to a parliamentary system where as President, Noynoy will merely be a ceremonial Head of State with no executive powers whatsoever.

Quirino Grandstand: The place where the Beginning of the End happened 54 days after the Beginning

This is the only way for Noynoy to retain his position and honor without getting ousted. This is the only way that Noynoy can ensure that he will cease to do real harm to the Philippines and to other countries. No amount of whining or finger-pointing at the previous administration is going to help: Mainland China clearly prefers to deal with the more decisive, astute, intelligent, organized, serious, practical-minded, results-oriented, and infinitely more competent Dr. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, PhD. There is unfortunately nothing Noynoy can do except to accept that his imminent loss of power –  which appears to be happening well within the year – was all a result of his unsuitability for the presidency, his own laziness & negligence and inability to assume the overall responsibility that any true leader would have done.

The Tragedy of August 23, 2010 at the Quirino Grandstand was the beginning of Noynoy’s early end. It is extremely sad and tragic that the beginning of the end of Noynoy’s administration had to happen exactly 54 days later at the same place where it began, on June 30, 2010.

Noynoy, if you are reading this, charter change is your only graceful way out of the mess you created.

Are you proud to have a President who looks like this?

A couple of years ago I was in line waiting for my turn to pay my tuition fee. There were no more than four counters open for transactions in my university which was a dumb idea. You see, those counters are supposed to serve the entire university, not just one college, for the remainder of the enrollment period. Imagine the distance of that line. The way that queue was organized is that it’s a first come first serve basis. Since there’s only whole row of people, the one in front gets to do his business and then so one. You get the idea. This generally prevents people who gets in later go in first. Apparently, this method does not stop people from courageously taking advantage of the busy students who are distracted from those who exploit the beauty of equality.

I was halfway into the line when I saw this male student talking to his buddy, whose row was in front of me (the line was a zig-zag type). The gut feel I had was that he was ready to jump in. Unfortunately for him, and fortunately for me, I was right. It didn’t take him more than one second after sitting down before I tapped him in the back and said, “Pare pumila ka naman, lahat kami dito pumila.” (Dude, get in line. All of us here waited). I knew he was not surprised with what I said, but he was more shocked to see a Filipino stand up for what was right. The look on his face was even more priceless. I could actually see he was caught off guard and he could only walk away. It is because he’s not like that. He lets things of that magnitude get away without any criticism from himself which is completely wrong. Sorry, bud. I’m not like any others. I’m sick of people trying to find a hole in the system and work their way from that. The same way he sees a friend in line and decides to tag along, not expecting someone like me.

The other time I was in Burger King waiting in line when this guy walked past me and went straight to the counter. I thought for a second if he was really trying to order something or just simply asking for condiments. Nope. I heard “Whopper” so that was my cue to call his attention. I told him how I was in line first. Like the other guy, he looked at me with pure embarrassment and told the lady to take my order instead. Too late, she had already punched in the order. I had no choice but to wait. The irony when he left the place without getting any food at all because apparently the burgers are too expensive. I heard the entire conversation with the lady.

Filipinos are naturally shy. They are somehow afraid to tell the other person that he is wrong. How often do you see someone calling out the person in front of him for cutting in line? The numbers in my head don’t even reach to 5. That shyness is reinforced by the own guilt. He does the same thing and he is aware of that, so he feels he is being a hypocrite if he condemns the next guy. That’s my problem with this nation. If we act differently, then people will think twice before doing a stupid act like that because they know they can be seen as public enemy number one anytime now. What’s a few words when you’re right, anyway? This shows a lot about our respect (or lack of it) in others. We care too much about ourselves that we refuse to see the people around us. The people who cut in line have no respect for the hundreds more who have been tolerating the heat longer than he has. He wants personal glory above everything else. During this time, that might do him good. In the long run, it just adds another symptom to our social disease that damages our nation even further.

Next time, don’t let them take advantage of your apprehension and security. Instead, take advantage of your mouth. It is there for a reason. Speak up and let your voices be heard.

Filipinos have been mounting a bit of an inward reflection and soul-searching in the face of overwhelming shame brought about by the appallingly incompetent handling of the August 23 Mendoza hostage incident that resulted in the unnecessary deaths of eight foreign tourists. Something interesting was dug up by the mostly half-witted efforts in this exercise taken by some Philippine apologists and triumphalists — the murder of two Filipino tourists in Beijing back in 2005.

One such apologist-cum-triumphalist is blogger Reyna Elena. I don’t know what kind of point blogger Elena was trying to make when he wrote an article highlighting the murder in Beijing of Filipino tourists Emmanuel Madrigal and his daughter Regina Mia in August 19, 2005. For the benefit of those looking for a more reliable account of this incident, the Madrigal case was mentioned in an August 2008 news article published in Mclatchydc.com that reported the stabbing to death in Beijing of Todd Bachman, father-in-law of the head coach of the U.S. Olympic volleyball team.

Just like the attack on Bachman, the attack that resulted in the death of the Madrigal father and daughter seemed to be a random act, although there is some speculation that the Madrigals were victims of an unfortunate case of mistaken identity (excerpt quoted from Mclatchydc.com):

Violent crime against foreigners rarely occurs in China. A Canadian model was murdered last month in Shanghai, reportedly after she came upon a robbery.

The last known fatal knife attack against foreigners occurred on April 19, 2005, when a man ran amok near the Mao Zedong Mausoleum in Tiananmen Square, stabbing to death an oil executive and his daughter from the Philippines, Emmanuel Madrigal and Regina Mia. The attack occurred following a spate of anti-Japanese rioting in major cities in China, and Filipino relatives said they believed the victims were mistaken for Japanese tourists.

The 25-year-old assailant, Wang Gongzuo, was later sentenced to death.

What is quite interesting here is how this incident is now being bandied around the Internet by people like “Reyna Elena” as some sort of perverse apples-to-oranges accounting of which country did what “better” as far as the handling of the respective cases vis-à-vis accountability over the outcome.

Let’s say for argument’s sake that there is a valid basis for making such comparisons between the way Chinese authorities handled the Madrigal and Bachman murders and the way Philippine authorities handled the Mendoza hostage affair. It would then be worth considering the following two questions to put things in perspective:

(1) Were there government authorities and other parties (such as the Media) involved and in a position to influence the outcome of the incident during the period that said incident transpired? If so;

(2) Was there anything that clearly could have been done by said involved parties to change the tragic outcome of said incident?

In the case of the tourist murders in Beijing, the answer to Question Number One is a NO and as such there is no point in even considering Question Number 2.

In the case of the Mendoza hostage incident, the response to both questions is a resounding YES.

I’ll spell it out. The Philippine Government, the Philippine Police, and the Philippine Media, were all involved in and actively influencing the Mendoza hostage incident as it transpired. The same thing cannot be said about the tragic sequence of events that led to the slaying of Bachman and the Madrigals.

Clearly there is no basis for comparing Beijing to Manila as far as handling such incidents.

Most likely the above points will be lost in a people renowned for a lack of a convincing tradition of accountability — both at a personal level and at a societal level. But then there is a point to be made nonetheless — even if it flies over the head of the average Filipino schmoe.

The Manila Hostage Crisis has been recognized as one of the greatest mistakes of our Filipino leadership and our culture. It has shown right to the world how defective our culture and system are, right from the hostage taker and his family to the policemen in their bungled rescue attempt. Filipinos and foreigners have been sobered and saddened by the events. Many are saying that it has exposed various wrongs in our system, and various international analysts have commented, correctly, on what has happened.

Now one of the worst reactions that Filipinos have is to say, “We are still proud to be Filipinos in spite of what happened! Mabuhay ang Pilipinas!” (side comment: yeah, ‘in spite of,’ Filipinos tend to spite other nations). Some Filipinos see it as a rightful action to save our image. It even seems that we are the only nation to use this kind of reaction. We try to remain a proud race despite another country’s people being killed on our territory.

Andrew Philip Cunanan: This guy certainly gives us nothing to be proud of.

My colleague here in AP Benign0 believes that Filipinos have to be shamed in order to realize their mistakes and change. This hostage crisis should have served as such an event. However, it seems that many Filipinos have immunized themselves against shame and instead tried to cover it up with trying to recover what’s left of their “pride.”

The problem is that proclaiming Filipino pride at this point is very wrong to do. From the Chinese point of view, statements of Filipino pride right now only serve to further degrade our already damaged image to the world. It is especially embarrassing now that Chinese are angered not only at the event, but at PNoy’s “smiling” visage and the pictures of disrespectful souvenir takers (a nice word is camwhores) circulating around the Net.

Saying that we’re still proud is seen as an act of arrogance, especially in the eyes of a nation that has been wronged by one of ours. It’s not just pride anymore. It’s hubris. If Chinese or even other countries see this, they’ll say, “Oh, you proud of yoh man who killed owah peepoh?” Certainly, Filipinos are not proud of that. But to foreigners, they rightly see that it’s funny for Filipinos to find any reason to be proud at all. Some people were killed. And the killer was Filipino. He represented us that day. That we cannot deny.

Oh my, Rep. Ronald Singson is in for a hell of a time in Hong Kong.

This issue probably reflects one thing: our culture and condition have become so pathetic, that we look to any aspirin to relieve the pain instead of getting the right treatment for the disease. We have a lot of problems: we send OFWs to the countries whose nationals we kill. We have a corrupt government, even the current one. Our population is growing to catastrophic levels, and yet an outdated church tries to stop nearly any method at population control. High crime, high poverty, high blood… we are unfortunately on the lower end (or even at the lowest end) when compared to our Asian neighbors.

We look to pride to try and lift us from the sober mood. We go back to pleasantry addiction instead of facing the problem squarely and trying to solve it properly. We try to focus on the positive in order to escape the negative. We seek escape by cheering Venus Raj, using the “pwede na yan” mentality to accept the 4th runner up position. That only shows how weak in character the Filipino culture has made of its people.

We should stop this obsession with pride. We need to acknowledge our mistakes. We Filipinos need to accept that the hostage crisis is a failure of our culture. Pride is especially a part of our culture’s failures. The failure is that we look for pride even if we should not!

Mendoza: a product of misplaced pride

I also propose that Mendoza is a victim of this stuffing of pride in the Pinoy ego. Mendoza after all was a decorated cop in his day. But why did he hostage foreigners at all? What do his demands to negotiators reflect? Also, why would a policeman like him feed narcotics to a suspect as a form of torture? Clearly, it was misplaced pride.

Since we are a Catholic country, let me front the question: why are we looking for pride when it is the top among the seven deadly sins?

I say, down with the pride. Let us humble ourselves. Humility is not negative. It is positive for a time like this.

We can still be Filipino. We don’t need to be ashamed of it. But we need to be ashamed of what happened. Yet shame is not the opposite of pride. Humility is. Let’s go in that direction.

And once we fix our problems can we truly be proud.

This is how the world will continue to see us if we don't change for the better.

On Aug. 23, Rolando Mendoza, a former senior police inspector with the Manila police department, boarded a tourist bus in downtown Manila and took control of the vehicle, holding the 25 occupants (tourists from Hong Kong and their Philippine guides) hostage. Mendoza, who was dressed in his police inspector’s uniform, was armed with an M16-type rifle and at least one handgun.

The Mendoza hostage-taking will be a topic of study on how not to rescue hostages - worldwide, for generations to come. That is Aquino's legacy - a legacy of incompetence and embarassment. Like mother, like son.

According to the police, Mendoza had been discharged from the department after being charged with extortion. Mendoza claimed the charges were fabricated and had fought a protracted administrative and legal battle in his effort to be reinstated. Apparently, Mendoza’s frustration over this process led to his plan to take the hostages. The fact that Mendoza entertained hope of regaining his police job by breaking the law and taking hostages speaks volumes about his mental state at the time of the incident.

After several hours of negotiation failed to convince Mendoza to surrender, communications broke down, Mendoza began to shoot hostages and police launched a clumsy and prolonged tactical operation to storm the bus. The operation lasted for more than an hour and left Mendoza and eight of the tourists dead at the end of a very public and protracted case of violence stemming from a workplace grievance.

Hostage-rescue operations are some of the most difficult and demanding tactical operations for police and military. To be successful, they require a great deal of training and planning and must be carefully executed. Because of this, hostage-rescue teams are among the most elite police and military units in the world. Since these teams are always training and learning, they pay close attention to operations like the one in Manila and study these operations carefully. They seek to adopt and incorporate tactics and techniques that work and learn from any mistakes that were made so they can avoid repeating them. Even in highly successful operations, there are always areas that can be improved upon and lessons that can be learned.

Indeed, in the Manila case, the events that unfolded provided a litany of lessons for hostage-rescue teams. The case will almost certainly be used in law enforcement and military classrooms across the globe for years as a textbook example of what not to do.

Breakdown of the Incident

Shortly after 10 a.m. on Aug. 23, Mendoza commandeered the bus and its occupants (his police inspector’s uniform was likely helpful in gaining him access to the vehicle). Within minutes, he released two female hostages. Soon thereafter he released four hostages (a woman and three children). Mendoza used a cell phone to call the Manila police, inform them of the situation and make his demands: that the charges against him be dropped by the police ombudsman’s office and that he be reinstated to the police force. These early hostage releases would generally be seen as a positive sign by the authorities, showing that Mendoza had some compassion for the women and children and that even if he was reducing the number of hostages for pragmatic, tactical reasons (to allow him better control over the group), he was at least reducing the number by releasing people and not killing them.

The police maintained communications with Mendoza, who stayed aboard the bus and kept the motor running. This not only kept the vehicle cool, but allowed Mendoza to watch events unfold around the bus on the onboard television set. He had his hostages close the curtains on the bus to make it more difficult for the authorities to determine where he was in the bus.

Shortly after 1 p.m., Mendoza requested more gasoline for the bus and some food. He released another hostage, an elderly man, in return for the gas and food. Two other hostages, both Philippine photographers, were released as a 3 p.m. deadline for action set by Mendoza came and went (one of the photographers was released before, one after). There were also reports that Mendoza had initially set a 12:30 p.m. deadline for action. The fact that these deadlines passed without violence would be an encouraging sign to the authorities that the incident could be resolved without bloodshed. Food was again taken out to the bus just before 5 p.m. During the afternoon, Mendoza could have been engaged by snipers on at least two occasions, but since negotiations were proceeding well and Mendoza did not appear to be close to shooting, the decision was made to try and wait him out and not attempt to kill him. If the snipers failed to incapacitate Mendoza, it could have risked the lives of the hostages.

During the ordeal, Mendoza continued to watch events unfold on the television inside the bus and reportedly even talked to journalists via cell phone. Mendoza also ordered the bus driver to park the vehicle sideways in the center of the road in an apparent attempt to make it more difficult to approach without detection.

Things took a marked turn for the worse around 6:20 p.m., when negotiators, accompanied by Mendoza’s brother Gregorio (who is also a police officer and who had earlier helped convince Mendoza to extend his deadline), approached the bus with a letter from the office of the ombudsman offering to reopen his case. Mendoza rejected the letter, saying he wanted his case dismissed, not reviewed. At this point, there are conflicting reports of what happened. The police negotiators told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that Mendoza’s brother told Mendoza that the letter from the ombudsman’s office was garbage and that he should not surrender. Other press reports indicate that the brother pleaded with Mendoza to take him hostage and release the tourists and that his pleading was seen as counterproductive to the negotiations.

Whatever the story, Mendoza’s brother was then arrested and his arrest was carried live on television and seen by Mendoza in the bus. Shortly after his brother’s arrest, Mendoza fired two warning shots and demanded in a radio interview that all the Manila Police Department SWAT officers be removed from the scene. Shortly after 7 p.m., Mendoza repeated his threats and refused to speak to his family members. Growing increasingly agitated, Mendoza shot two of the hostages when his demand for the SWAT officers to retreat was not met. He released the Philippine bus driver, who reportedly told police that all the hostages were dead. (We are unsure why the driver said this when only two of the passengers had been killed, but the police would have been able to tell from the volume of fire that Mendoza had not truly killed all the hostages.)

At about 7:30 p.m., the tires of the bus were shot out and a police tactical team approached the vehicle and began to smash its windows with a sledgehammer. The police attempted to slowly enter the back of the bus by crawling through one of the shattered windows from the top of a police truck but were forced back out of the window by gunfire.

At about 8:40 p.m., police deployed tear gas into the back of the bus through the missing windows. Gunfire erupted and Mendoza was finally killed in a hail of bullets. Six additional hostages also perished during the exchange of gunfire. It is unclear at this point if they were intentionally shot by Mendoza or if they were caught in the crossfire.

Hostage Situations

By the time of the rescue attempt, the saga of Mendoza’s firing from the police force had been going on for some time, and it is important to recognize that he did not make a spontaneous decision to seize the tourist bus. Even if the bus was targeted shortly before the attack, Mendoza’s path toward violent action would have included several significant warning signs. As in almost any case of violence that stems from issues in the workplace, once the chain of events are examined more closely, reports will emerge that warning signs were either missed or ignored. Had those warning signs been noted and acted upon, this situation might have been avoided.

Since the event was not pre-empted, once it happened and developed into a hostage situation, the primary objective of the authorities was to resolve the incident without violence. Skillful hostage negotiators do this by allowing the hostage-taker to vent. They also work hard to defuse any tension that has the attacker on edge and to gently wear the attacker down to the point of surrender. One of the essential principles in this effort is to isolate the hostage-taker so that he or she cannot receive outside communication, motivation, encouragement or other forms of support. Hostage negotiators seek to control the flow of all information into or out of the crime scene. That did not occur in this case. Mendoza was able to talk to outsiders on his cell phone and even gave media interviews. He was also able to use the television in the bus to watch live media coverage of the incident, including video of the deployment of police officers. This gave him a considerable advantage and far more information than what he could have observed with his eyes from inside the curtained bus.

As shown in the November 2008 attack in Mumbai, India, it has become more difficult to isolate assailants from outside communications in the cell phone era, but there are ways that such communications can be disabled. It is not known why the Manila police did not attempt to jam the outside communication signals going to and from the bus, but that is certainly something that will come up in the after-action review, as will their handling of the media and onlookers (one of whom was wounded) during the incident.

As negotiations are proceeding in a hostage situation, the authorities must always be busily preparing to launch an assault in case negotiations fail. When the assailant is agitated or mentally disturbed, the situation on the ground can sometimes change quite rapidly, and the rescue team needs to be prepared to act on a moment’s notice. Usually the team will come in with an initial assault plan and then alter and refine their plan as more intelligence becomes available, and as they become more familiar with the site and the situation.

If the hostages are being held in a building, the rescue team will get the blueprints of the building and collect as much information as possible in an effort to plan their assault on the location where the hostages are being held. In this case, the hostages were being held on a stationary bus, which made it far easier to collect that type of intelligence — a bus is a bus. The authorities also had access to released hostages who, had they been debriefed, could have described to authorities the situation inside the bus.

In a protracted hostage situation, the authorities will frequently employ technical measures to gather additional intelligence on the activities of the hostage-taker. This may involve the use of overt or clandestine video equipment, parabolic microphones or microphones surreptitiously placed in or near the site. Even thermal imaging sets and technical equipment to intercept cell phone communication or radio transmissions are sometimes used.

All the information gleaned from such efforts will not only go to the negotiators, to help them understand the hostage-taker’s frame of mind, but will also be used to help the rescue team fine-tune their assault plan.

Meanwhile, as the assault plan is being tweaked, negotiations continue and the hostage negotiators work to wear down the hostage-taker. It appears that the negotiators in the Mendoza case were doing a fairly good job of keeping the situation calm until the situation flared up involving Mendoza’s brother and the letter from the ombudsman’s office. Authorities clearly erred by not sending him a letter saying they had dropped the case against him. (They did not need the extortion charges now that they could arrest him and charge him with kidnapping and a host of other crimes.) It is hard to understand why the police department quibbled over words and refused to give him the piece of paper he expressly demanded. The police then aggravated the situation greatly with the public arrest of Mendoza’s brother. Those two events caused the situation to deteriorate rapidly and resulted in Mendoza’s decision to begin shooting. Once he shot the first two hostages, the negotiations were clearly over and it was time to implement a tactical solution to the problem.

The Use of Force

In a hostage situation, the use of force is a last resort. If force is required, however, the rescue team needs to hit hard, hit fast and hit accurately. There is little time for hesitation or error: Lives hang in the balance. This is where things began to get very ugly in the Mendoza case. Not only was there a delay between the murder of the first hostages and the launching of the first assault attempt, the assault was not hard, fast or accurate. To succeed, an assault should be dynamic, assume control of the scene by overwhelming force and use surprise and confusion to catch the hostage-taker off guard and quickly incapacitate him. The rescue team needs to dominate the place where the entry is being made and then quickly and accurately shoot the assailant. When the police began to smash the windows of the bus with sledgehammers and then continued to beat on the windows for more than a minute, Mendoza had ample time to kill his hostages had he wished to do so. The only thing that saved the hostages who did survive was Mendoza’s apparent reluctance to kill them.

It appears that the intent of the police was to smash the rear window to provide an opening and then to continue smashing windows as they moved forward in an effort to draw Mendoza’s attention to the front of the bus while the assault team entered from the rear. When the police did attempt to enter the bus using the roof of the police vehicle, however, it was a slow, clumsy attempt that was quickly repelled by Mendoza once he opened fire on the team. They did not enter the bus quickly, and their tepid approach caused them to lose the element of tactical surprise, denied them the opportunity to employ overwhelming force and allowed Mendoza time to think and react and begin firing. There was no hope of the assault team’s dominating the breaching point (or the rest of the bus) when they entered in such a half-hearted manner. Then, instead of following through with the assault by storming the front door while Mendoza was firing at the police in the rear of the bus, the police withdrew and went back to the drawing board. Again, had Mendoza wanted to kill all his remaining hostages, the withdrawal of the assault team gave him ample time to do so.

More than an hour after the first assault, the police again approached the bus and deployed tear gas grenades through the broken windows at the back of the bus. This flushed Mendoza toward the front of the bus and, after a brief exchange of gunfire, he was killed. There were some reports that he was killed by a police sniper, but we have seen no evidence to corroborate those reports, and it appears that he was shot from a relatively short range. Eight of the hostages survived the ordeal.

Granted, a bus does offer some challenges for a takedown operation, but is also a very common form of transportation throughout the world, and there have been numerous hostage situations involving buses in many different countries. Because of this, professional rescue teams frequently practice bus takedowns in much the same way they practice building takedowns or aircraft takedowns.

It was very apparent that the Manila SWAT unit lacked the experience, equipment and training to conduct effective hostage-rescue operations, and we have seen this problem in other local police departments in the developing world. We have not been able to learn why the police did not seek the help of a national-level hostage-rescue unit for the tactical aspect of this situation rather than leaving it to the Manila SWAT team to resolve. Given the prolonged duration of the situation and the location in the nation’s capital, higher-level assets should have had time to deploy to the scene.

Unlike many cases of workplace violence, this one did not involve a disgruntled employee charging into his former office with guns blazing. Instead, Mendoza embarked on a course of action that would, as it turned out, cause a great deal of public humiliation for his former employer. Indeed, the head of the Manila police district tendered his resignation Aug. 24. Four leaders of the Manila SWAT team were also placed on administrative leave.

In the past, some botched rescue attempts have spurred inquiries that have resulted in countries creating or dramatically improving their hostage-rescue capabilities. For example, the failed rescue attempt in Munich in 1972 led to the creation of Germany’s GSG-9, one of the most competent hostage-rescue teams in the world. It will be interesting to see if the Mendoza case spurs similar developments in the Philippines, a country facing a number of security threats.

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A Botched Hostage Rescue in the Philippines
August 26, 2010 | 0855 GMT
By Scott Stewart

A Botched Hostage Rescue in the Philippines is republished with permission of STRATFOR.

Most of us knew it was just a matter of time. As predicted in my previous blog, President Noynoy Aquino’s high popularity rating at the beginning of his term only had one way to go and that was down. What I never expected was for P.Noy’s fall from grace to be as quick and catastrophic as this one, and to be witnessed by the rest of the international community.

Less than a hundred days after being sworn to office, the Chief Executive of Hong Kong, Donald Tsang called the Aquino government a disappointment after the recent tragic Mendoza hostage drama in the heart of Manila. No amount of damage control after the fact can undo the damage done or even just to pacify the frustration felt by the Chinese official and the rest of the Chinese community. P.Noy’s image has been tainted and he is now seen as an incompetent leader by the rest of the world no thanks to himself, his own staff and the media empire owned and operated by his family and friends.

As they say, first impressions last and as far as first impressions go for P.Noy, his inaction during and apparent insensitivity after the tragic event were a total PR disaster here and abroad. And as they say, the first cut is the deepest and as far as first cuts go for P.Noy, it cut to the bone — the core of his leadership skills. Time might heal the wounds but there will always be a scar to remind people about it. I can quote all the cliché’s applicable to P.Noy in this situation but it still won’t save P.Noy’s reputation. He is on his own big time.

Even attempts by his minions in the survey firm Social Weather Station (SWS) to publish an “improved lives” rating seems so lame. One can only wonder why a two-month old survey conducted prior to P.Noy’s presidential proclamation would be published right after the Mendoza hostage tragedy. It just goes to show how everyone around P.Noy has bad taste, particularly when they say “Four in 10 Filipinos are optimistic that their lives will improve in the first year of the Aquino administration.” When will SWS get it right?!? It would help if they asked the right people and conducted it at the right time. And it would have been a cheaper and more accurate exercise if they just counted all the hate messages on P.Noy’s Facebook account on line.

After the smoke has cleared, it seems likely that any promises of a “thorough investigation” of the incident will mean very little as far as preventing the same thing from happening again. As of this writing, there is one report of Justice undersecretary Jose Vicente Salazar announcing that, “two government agencies have started investigating Monday’s bloody hostage crisis. ” To quote:

“The parallel investigation is being conducted by the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) and the Department of Justice (DOJ).

And another one that…

“A top-level government panel will look into the “institutional problems ” of the police and other state agencies which could have led to the tragic conclusion to Monday’s hostage-taking incident, the Department of Justice said Wednesday.

The justice official said Robredo will head the committee, with De Lima as vice chair and Philippine National Police Director General Jesus Verzosa, National Bureau of Investigation Director Magtanggol Gatdula and PNP-Internal Affairs Service chief Director Ifor Magbanua as members.

Salazar said the committee’s recommendations will be the blueprint in crafting guidelines which the PNP and other concerned state agencies will follow in dealing with hostage-taking incidents.

The output of the inquiry may also be used as guideline for the media in their reportage of similar news events, he said.

“We intend to have guidelines which should be provided for both the media and the police… so we can handle (hostage crisis) and avoid the results which we saw two nights ago,” Salazar said, adding:

“The partnership of the media and the government is crucial in any incidents like this one.”

The above investigation is separate from what the Philippine National Police will be conducting which they say will carry out the “criminal, administrative, and human rights aspects of the investigation”.

Whew!!! If you ask me, and to borrow another saying: too many cooks spoil the broth. All these “investigations” will be just wasted effort because none of the activities mentioned above is geared towards rehabilitating the culture of hopelessness that bore down on the late Rolando Mendoza after allegedly being unfairly dismissed from the police force.

It is in fact, none other than P.Noy himself who contributed to the environment of distrust when he dismissed people without due process. This was initially evident when he wanted to dismiss Chief Justice Corona and the many other public servants who he keeps referring to as former President Gloria Arroyo’s “midnight appointees.”

Who cries for people like Rolando Mendoza anyway? Hardly anyone feels sorry for the deceased hostage taker. People think he was a lunatic for initiating the events that snowballed into the disaster that reduced our country to a global laughingstock. But I say that he was a desperate man who was driven to doing something extremely deadly or fatalistic just to get some attention. I am not excusing him but he was obviously not in his right mind. He was in a fragile state. Anyone could have easily experienced the frustration he went through and slipped into lunacy once pushed over the brink of sanity. It was indeed a dog day the whole day for a highly distressed man who felt he had nothing to lose.

The truth is, with all this “heads will roll” grandstanding being thrown around lately (to be exact, four officers were already suspended pending investigation), I have a feeling there are many Philippine police officers who are experiencing low morale at the moment. Most of the fingers are pointed at them when, to be fair to them, it is also the role of the government to allocate funds for their training and to ensure that they are highly motivated and committed to their duties to protect and serve the citizens. Someone’s got to protect them too.

As the head of state, P.Noy needs to overcome a culture of distrust and get employees to share information first and foremost. Let’s not entirely look down on the entire police force for botching the rescue operation. Responsibility for recognizing the average police officer’s need for more training falls on someone higher up in their ranks including the commander-in-chief.

P.Noy as the leader should take a revolutionary step: take issues to public servants like the police force for resolution. Focus groups at various levels of the organization can be formed to answer such questions as: What’s wrong with communications at the company level? The department level? Team level? Upward/downward? Peer to peer? More importantly, he should use a systemic approach to develop solutions to the problems that have been identified. These are just small initiatives that any one with experience in a blue chip company or anyone with a strong political background can handle. Sadly, P.Noy does not have both so it is going to take more than 100 days for him to shape up and exhibit true leadership.

Many of us knew deep inside that it was just a matter of time before a crisis like this revealed the true extent of our public servants’ incompetence not to mention that of P.Noy Aquino. I’m sure I could speak for everyone in saying that none of us wanted something like this to happen.