MANILA, Philippines - Reactions in the Hong Kong and Chinese social media communities over Monday’s bloody hostage-taking in Manila have gone from grief to anger, fanning sentiments bordering on racism. 

After a former police officer’s hijacking of a bus at the Quirino Grandstand in Manila led to 8 Hong Kong tourists’ death, Hong Kong nationals expressed their mixed emotions on Twitter, blogs, Facebook and newspaper chat corners.

The day after the crisis, criticism of the Philippine National Police (PNP) intensified on the popular blog EastSouthWestNorth.

Its Hong Kong-based blogger, Roland Soong, quoted others saying, “Manila police are garbage” and calling them “the shame of Philippines.”

The blog featured pictures of the hostage crises with bright red circles around police errors. In one image a teargas canister that a PNP officer threw in the wrong direction bounces off a bus window.

But EastSouthWestNorth also hosted a warning article titled, “Do Not Turn Your Anger Into Racism.” Here, Leung Kai-chi, a writer for the Hong Kong newspaper, Ming Pao, said, “The vilest position is to generalize the incompetence of the Manila police to the people of the Philippines as a whole and then apply persons attacks because all Filipinos are like that.  This is blatant racism.”

“If foreigners were to say that all Chinese people are evil and vile because of the tainted infant formula and tofu construction projects, most Hong Kong people will object.  Isn't it the same mistake to think all Filipinos are flawed because the Manila police had some miscues?”

Meanwhile, in Mainland China, where the government blocks access to Twitter and Facebook, netizens spoke about the tragedy on various Bulletin Board Systems (BBS).

BBS hosts some of China’s most heated and frank political debates via e-mail listservs, chat rooms, instant message services and wireless short text messaging.

There were over 240 comments on the China Forum, a BBS chat corner hosted by China Daily.

A day after the crisis, ‘Kbay’, an active participant in the China forum, said, “Chinese lives are not that important to these Stone Age people….So once the last (Filipino) had escaped, it was okay start shooting? Great Stone Age rescue plan.” 

This referred to the police assault after the Filipino bus driver freed himself from being handcuffed to the vehicle. He dashed away from the bus and told police and media everyone in the bus is dead. The police then launched what appeared to be a clumsy rescue that had them pounding on the bus’ windows and door using a sledgehammer and throwing teargas into the bus with no gasmasks for themselves or for the hostages. 

Kbay’s inflammatory posts were contradicted by many others. A post from someone nicknamed ‘Petitioner’ said, “I do feel sad for the Hong Kong tourists. Chinese and their decedents play a very important role in the Philippines. It is okay to scrutinize the police action - but it is not fair to the Filipino people to smear dirt on them.” 

Comments like Petitioner’s are becoming rarer. Three days after the Quirino Grandstand incident, HK and Chinese social media reactions are souring in response to the actions of the Philippine president, police and people.

Pictures of Philippine police and school girls posing for photos in front of the damaged bus are on ChinaSmack, a comprehensive site for Chinese netizen opinions and popular Chinese Internet trends. Under the pictures are over twenty irate comments.

“From the Filipino police smiling and taking photos, what we see is a lack of humanity! To be blunt: Just a bunch of creatures worse than pigs and dogs,” said a user in the Sichuan city of Chengdu.

A user in Xining said, “No conscientious, self-respecting Chinese person should go to this trash country for tourism, buy products made by this trash country, or hire the people of this trash country.”

Many Hong Kong and Chinese social media users also considered it an insult that President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III smiled during the press conference he held barely three hours after the hostage crisis.

On Wednesday, Aquino apologized if his smile had been misunderstood. He said, “Obviously, there was no joy in attending to that situation.” 

But by then, hundreds of angry messages from Hong Kong residents had marred his Twitter and Facebook pages. The President has since restricted responses to these accounts.