Just this week, our country has experienced one of the most–how do I say this–uhm, “profound” emotional roller coaster rides we’ve had in recent memory.  From a very shocking, disappointing, and unimaginably embarrassing resolution of the Manila Bus Hostage drama, to an uplifting, pain-soothing fifth place finish in the Miss Universe pageant.  Still, days after, we’re still reeling from the backlash–both positive and negative–from those two events.  And while everybody has had their fair share (myself included) in commenting, criticizing, analyzing, swearing, and blaming on these two incidents, the bottomline is this:  we both had opportunities to step up to the plate, hold our heads high and do our country proud in front of the entire world.  But alas, we failed.

 

The series of events on August 23, 2010 is a prime example of a deteriorating situation.  A 10-hour fuse that was lit and the only end of that was a bomb.  Hong Kong tourists, on a last day of happily frolicking in our nation’s capital before going back to the reality of their homeland, instead met the mind of an unstable, trigger-happy, cordite-sniffing, disgruntled ex-policeman who probably watched the premiere showing of “The Taking of Pelham 123” on HBO the night before and woke up Monday morning telling himself, “if Ryder (the character in the movie) can get New York City to give him money, maybe I can get back my job by doing the same.  Only this time, I’ll raise the stakes and hostage tourists instead of locals.”  Upon receiving initial word of the incident, the top brass of the Manila Police District thought that this dismissed cop was just looking for publicity, and thus failed to acknowledge the seriousness of the situation.  They probably thought, “he was one of us, so it’ll be easy to talk to him.”  Probably so, and with his constant release of some of the hostages, they then fell into a false sense of security that the situation will end peacefully and in a short amount of time.  I’m no expert, but should all hostage incidents have the same high level of seriousness elicited from the police?  In all accounts, from the lack of perimeter security from both media and on-lookers, the constant, casual parading of the hostage-taker on the front door of the bus and brandishing his firearms, to the involvement of the hostage-taker’s brother, the police force failed to enforce what I think should be rule number one in this case:  secure the situation.  From controlling the media and the gathering crowd, to having a systematic, singular talking point to the hostage taker.  That wasn’t clearly established.  And did they ever think that with the hostage-taker’s demand to get back his job, isn’t that enough information that this would end with him laid out on a stretcher?  I mean, who in the right mind would ask to get back a lost job by taking hostages?  Is there any simple logic in that?  And of course, we all saw what happened when the so-called “assault” on the bus happened that night.  I need not emphasize any further.  The writing’s clearly on the wall and I’ll leave what was shown on live TV all over the world to speak for itself.

 

Now, we’re suffering the wrath of Hong Kong citizens and dismayed people all over the world for a seriously botched police undertaking.  One other thing:  positioned snipers reported numerous times early on in the afternoon that they had clear shots to take out the hostage-taker.  It’s either the ground commander was too chicken to give the order to kill a fellow policeman, or he doesn’t want to face the ire of the Commission on Human Rights for violations.  I know this much:  I’d rather see one hostage-taker dead from a lone sniper shot that would’ve ended everything at once, have zero hostage casualties and earned the respect and admiration of Hong Kong and perhaps the world, than have a hostage incident drag way into the night and have one hostage-taker together with seven hostages dead through an embarrassing, asses-kicked “rescue” operation that had a worldwide audience watching their every mistake.

 

But that’s just one part.  The all-powerful local media is as much to blame as the police in how badly the situation ended.  In eagerness to get exclusive vantage points and bring the latest developments to stunned and shocked viewers, they overlooked what was then ever-present:  the element of danger.  Not to the reporters and cameramen (who were later ego-fed by being called “brave” by one news anchor at the end of the news program), but of the hostages themselves.  These media outfits should know that in any hostage scenario, maximum publicity is the goal of the hostage-taker.  Giving in via live updates and reports only fans the flame that would lead–or in this case, have led–to how things ended.  They never thought that the hostage-taker has access to radio and TV on the bus (which almost all buses have) and could see the developments outside the bus.  If you have watched Die Hard 1 and 2, the character of Richard Thornburg (a local news reporter) has the same attitude as what our local media giants have.  Never mind the danger that can be caused to the hostages by live reporting, as long as it is being made “for the benefit of everyone.”  It’s high time that our local media, in extremely sensitive and dangerous scenarios such as hostage incidents, should exercise responsibility, forward-thinking and that not everything is a ratings game.

 

With a very sad Monday ending, the country turned its eyes to our representative to the Miss Universe pageant to help us save face by giving it her all in the competition that aired the next day.  Personally, I wondered if she’ll ever get selected to the top 15 because I never really found her beautiful.  Or rather, Miss Universe material.  Not one bit.  Okay, so the pre-pageant thingies made her an early favorite, but i was still skeptical.  This much I knew:  if she can get to the top 15, top 10, or top five, I was very, very sure that she wouldn’t win it all.  It was a hunch I had long ago when her Miss Philippines crown was given back to her after that birth certificate scandal she went through.  I actually chose Miss Australia to make a run for the crown.  When she did make it to the top five together with our candidate, I was confident about my pick.  Just like with what happened the day before, we all saw–together with the entire world–what went down in the final question.  I was actually expecting a difficult question from Mr. Baldwin to test our candidate’s intellect.  But no.  Her question was, for me, by far the easiest among all the other questions that were asked.  And what did our candidate answer?  She answered with her nervousness and let pressure take over.  Even though you treat mistakes as learning points in life, she should’ve at least singled out one out of her many (i’m sure she has many, because hey, everybody makes mistakes) that she has had.  When she gave her answer (and in the way she said it), i clasped my hands and was definitely convinced that she will not be crowned Miss Universe.  Being the first to be called as fourth runner-up further cemented the effect her answer had, and what I knew from the very start.

 

In h
er defense, people say that it is hard when you’re on stage in front of the entire world answering a question that’ll make or break your chances of winning.  But then I ask, isn’t that what training for the pageant is there for?  I mean, it was even shown on one local news report how she was being trained by being asked questions by different people on a round table, and even on a small stage.  I’m also thinking that there’s another thing that led to her being overcome by pressure:  her attitude.  Either she was too confident of herself because of her being labeled a pre-pageant favorite, or that she was just “happy to be in” the top 15, top 10, and top five.  And what did she say afterwards regarding the missed chance to win it all?  Nothing.  It’s like, if she was back there again and asked the same question, she’ll give the exact same answer.  Are you nuts?!  That kind of thinking is what probably made you fourth-runner up!  And you still had the fortitude to smile about it?  I would’ve respected you more if you admitted and apologized for your mistake and maybe even sulked in one corner for blowing the chance you had.  I mean, I may be a “lowered-expectations” kinda guy, but if i’m given the chance to win big for flag and country and lost due to a simple thing, I would’ve beaten myself and apologized immensely.  And her thinking is what affects most of us.  We’re “ok” with what she has accomplished and that’s enough.  We don’t strive hard enough to be number one, or to be the best.  Not that there’s nothing wrong with what she’s brought to the country–especially after what happened the day before–but we should, moving forward, change the attitude in sending delegates to any competition.  We cannot just represent, we have to have that mindset that we’ll compete to win, and win big.  Being happy to be there should only occupy about five percent of the overall mindset of any competitor, beauty queen delegate, or any other contestant our country sends.  The rest should be focused on winning.

 

These two worldwide witnessed events have taught us and our country a lesson.  More so, in hindsight, it showed opportunities that we missed in order to have things we should’ve had, or finished things the way it should’ve been.  But all is not lost.  The Manila Bus Hostage incident is nowhere near what happened in the Mumbai shootings.  Both are isolated incidents for each country.  Of course tourism will be affected for the immediate future.  But as with all negative things, we can always find a positive way to rise up from it.  We as a country and as a people can and will recover from this.  This is now an opportunity for the government to save face and do everything it has to do to look into the events objectively and punish those that are needed to be punished.  As for the Miss Universe crown, well, there’s always next year.  But again, we have to start changing the way we compete in events, and more importantly, change the mindset not just of the representatives, but of us as a society.  Otherwise, we’ll be counting missed opportunities left and right and play the blame game again and again.  We have this chance.  Let’s not waste it again.