Angry.

I’m sure most of you are probably already aware of the hostage crisis in Manila that claimed that lives of 7 (or 8, as some reports claim) Hong Kong holiday makers.

To be honest, when I was watching the news on TV, I was getting angrier and angrier at the Phillipines police. I mean, using a sledgehammer to try to break the windows on a bus was about the worst hostage rescue mission that I’ve ever seen in my life. What’s pissing me off even further was that – how can a rescue operation last 2 hours? I could understand that standoff to last for a long time, but rescue operation to last 2 hours? In the 1991 SIA hijack incident, SAF commandos finished off the four hijackers and saved all the hostages in 30 seconds. We have one hostage taker, and the whole operation took 2 hours. I don’t even think that’s a “rescue operation”.

There were also several opportunities during the day when I thought the police could have taken actions. If you look back at the pictures of the whole saga, you could see at several points in time the hostage taker was standing “leisurely” at the bus entrance, and nothing happened. While I’m no armed forces experts, I thought that would have been the best opportunity to take action. Either take him out with a sniper shot, or just shoot him in the arm, the leg, the whatever and bring him down. Instead, nothing happened. If that lot of dummies would have actually done somethign more constructive, we don’t have to endure the pain of losing so many lives.

And when the rescue operation did take place, just what on earth were the policemen thinking when they were trying to break open the window using a sledgehammer? Isn’t that like announcing to the hostage taker that “we are coming in”? Haven’t they got anything like mild explosives which would be just enough to blow off the bus windows at the front and back of the bus? Also, when they were trying to “storm” the bus using the emergency exit, just what were they thinking?

Thank goodness I’m not a Filippino – I would have been ashamed if the police force that I depend on to protect my lives is so outrageously incompetent.