MH17 Shot Down

I can't believe it! Just months after Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 vanishes without a trace, another Malaysian jet is down. MH17, flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, is shot down by a surface-to-air missile in pro-Russian controlled eastern Ukraine.

I'm so heart-broken. And angry. How dare they take the lives of 298 innocent people? I blame Russia, and Putin, and his ultra-nationalist greed. If Russia had just left Ukraine alone, this would not have happened.

How sad for Malaysia and the challenges their flag carrier is facing. How sad especially for the families and friends of the people on board. My heart goes out to them. I hope that in the some way, they get comfort from the fact that the whole world mourns with them.

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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

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Dumaguete, Battered

What I thought as harmless rain last Saturday was apparently not very harmless after all. For the first time ever, my hometown had a major flood. It was not only felt in some of the areas of the city, but in surrounding towns as well. According to the Philippine Daily Inquirer, five people died in my province because of flood and landslides. The situation was caused by a low pressure area in Mindanao.

Something as big as this has never happened in Dumaguete before. In some villages, the water was waist-deep. In areas near rivers, it was supposedly even higher. Nothing bad happened in my area, but we did lose water supply for a few hours yesterday. Some pipes were probably damaged.

A photo taken by a friend of a vehicle in the flood.

Thankfully, the waters have subsided and everything is dry now. Apart from the river banks, you wouldn't see any indication that the city was just hit by a flood, and life goes on.

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Tardy traffic controllers delay planes

I'm fascinated by airplanes, but I know things can go real bad, real quick. That's why this really has me outraged:

Tardy traffic controllers delay planes
From Inquirer.net

By Julie Alipala
Mindanao Bureau
First Posted 04:18:00 12/27/2008

ZAMBOANGA CITY – A Philippine Air Lines flight and a Cebu Pacific plane from Manila had to stay in the air for several minutes Friday because of tardy air traffic controllers at the Zamboanga City International Airport here.

An official of the Air Transportation Office (ATO) said the planes later landed safely when air traffic controllers arrived after being late for about 40 minutes.

Chito Atilano, officer-in-charge of the Philippine Airlines office here, said PR123, with 153 passengers aboard was supposed to land at 6:23 a.m.

He said the pilots, identified only as Capt. Tumalad and First Officer Manarang, tried to make contact with the traffic control tower as soon as they arrived here but nobody was around to take their calls.

Atilano said after a few minutes, the pilots again contacted the tower so they could land the plane but still, nobody was answering.

“The pilot and his copilot reported of attempting to land four times but no one was manning the control tower,” he said.

Atilano said the pilots knew that staying in the air for too long would be risky as they were already running out of fuel. The plane’s fuel for the Manila-Zamboanga flight was only about 1,350 kilograms.

Fifth try

He said the pilots decided to make a fifth and final attempt to land before deciding to divert to Cebu City. It was on the fifth try that the control tower responded, he said.

“Fortunately on the fifth attempt, someone responded from the tower that made the landing safe,” Atilano said.

He said the plane finally touched down at 6:51 a.m., after nearly half an hour of hovering over the airport.

Celso Bayabos, chief of the Air Transportation Office here, said a Cebu Pacific plane from Manila also had to stay on the air because it could not land without the PAL landing first.

Bayabos said the planes arrived here 20 minutes apart but until the first one has landed, the other one could not land.

He acknowledged that the problems started when the air traffic controllers failed to report on time.

“They were 40 minutes late,” he said, adding that they should have been manning the control tower before 6 a.m.

Asked what could have caused the tardiness, Bayabos said: “Probably they were still on Christmas mode.”

But he quickly added that “whatever they did on Christmas day, it should not get in the way of performing their jobs.”

“I have already filed the report to our national office for sanctions against these five personnel,” Bayabos said.

What the fuck, man? What the fuck. I mean, seriously. This is not funny at all. Something should be done about this so it doesn't happen ever again, anywhere in the world.Those people should be sued, or sacked. And not only are the tardy controllers at fault; the airport officials should also be held accountable for letting this happen.

I wish I could do something to make sure this offense is thoroughly investigated and punished, not just filed away and forgotten. Alas, I can only blog about it.

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Sigh

My father is safe, thank God. He talked to my mom and told her that the attack happened somewhat nearby. This just pisses me off so much. Those people are so unfair, they only ever think of their fucking selves. >.<

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Those fucking terrorists!

I just found out about what happened to that oil company in Khobar, Saudi Arabia. That city is where my father is. And he's also working at an oil company with westerners. >.<

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Horrible horrible!

One of my friends sent me an email with a link to the video showing the beheading of Nick Berg. I don't know why I even clicked on it. Oh my God. It's just so so horrible...

[ADD-ON]
After I saw those pictures of abused Iraqi prisoners, I was feeling so bad for those Iraqi people. And then they did this. And it like, erased most of my sympathy towards them. I shouldn't be generalizing, but in situations like these, it just can't be helped.

Gah. It's a sad, cruel world out there. *crawls back into my mummy's tummy*

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