It was a rather long day for Philippines today as the drama of a hostage taking incident lasted for 12 hours or so before finally being resolved. The gunman who was identified as former senior police inspector Rolando Mendoza was killed by a gunshot from one of the snipers on the field. There was no immediate confirmation of any other casualties in the daylong standoff but news reports have been reporting at least 4 more casualties.
The hostage taking was part of his plan to let him be reinstated from work. Reports have shown that he was among five officers discharged of their duty as they faced several complaints including robbery, extortion and grave threats back in 2008.
The former officer took control of the bus that contained 25 people including the driver. The tourists are here on a 3-day vacation and includes 20 Hongkong nationals and 4 Filipinos. There were 3 children aboard. 9 of the original hostages were earlier released leaving 16 people in the bus. Negotiations fell off when police apparently hurt his brother. Later during the day, the driver escaped through the window leaving the rest on board.
What was dumb founding on this incident is the fact that it took them 10-12 hours before finally resolving the hostage crisis. It could have been resolved much earlier and could have avoided bloodshed. Innocent lives have been taken and all of thes in front of the whole world. Philippines is in another headline but another bad one. As the world looked on, the identity of the Philippines was once again tarnished. It was a clear show of our police force's incompetencies. Let's just hope the images of this emotional rollercoaster be quickly erased. Prayers are what we need in times like these. Philippines is just not like this...