Sad Day

What a sad and embarrassing day for the Philippines today has been, as a former police officer who was dismissed from his job took a bus of 25 people, most of whom Hong Kong tourists, hostage at around 10 o'clock this morning. Ten hours later, the crisis is finally over, with the hostage-taker shot by a sniper. As of the moment, it is confirmed that seventeen hostages have survived, nine of whom were released through negotiation.

Once again, the Philippines is on worldwide news, for something as horrible as this. Someone tweeted, "Philippine humiliation at the cost of one man's selfishness", and how true that is. This man obviously had problems, and he is to blame. Filipinos are bashing the police, and yes, they could have done better. But we have to remember that although we have seen things like this happen over and over in movies, CSI, NCIS, and whatever else, the bottom line is, those are all make believe. In real life, it is not easy. My heart goes out to the victims of the hostage, though, especially the families of the casualties. It is heart-breaking, this incident. That cannot be denied.

Hong Kong has now issued a black travel alert for the Philippines, telling its citizens not to come here. I hope the world will realize though, that not all Filipinos are like the suspect, Rolando Mendoza. He was just one distressed man. This hostage-taking could have happened anywhere. The Philippines is still a beautiful country, the Filipinos still loving people.

Read the news story from Inquirer.net