What went wrong? Why it went wrong? Whose responsibility in handling this kind of crisis would fall into? Why was it too late to make such decision before the tragedy could have been averted? There are so many questions that need answers. But in one’s mind, sir, you are the president who could have acted swiftly at your disposal to prevent such tragedy from happening.
You are still a popular president and should you have meddled personally to the hostage taking event, there is this great chance that Senior Inspector Mendoza would have listened and yielded to your requests. Sending your lieutenants in the crisis would not produce a positive outcome because the general public knows that a lot of these officers and commanders in the field are incompetent and corrupt at that. We have to admit it. These may be the same superiors who have the hands for his dismissal.
On August 06 of 2009, I wrote and sent a 3-page letter urging you to consider running for president of the country and perhaps hundreds of people did the same to make you decide to give a shot for the highest position of the land. Your Office Secretary in the House of Senate can attest to that. I believed that as a younger president, you would be bold and determined to make a decision that would make the nation great. The right step at the right time. I believed in what you can do for the Philippines. This handling of the crisis proves me somewhat wrong. I just hope you will learn something from this crisis. If your army of advisers cannot give you sound advices, at least, we expect you to act on your own judgment.
What transpired in the hostage-taking crisis is crystal clear that even the hierarchy in the police department has no capacity to handle the situation. DILG is inutile while the Office of the Ombudsman made the situation even worst. I know, the public became agitated that no one can do something useful to help rescue the crisis from collapsing. Such a waste of time when you can still do something within that 12-hour standoff.
From my own personal point of view and sense of judgment, Inspector Mendoza had no intention of harming his hostages, yet this is just one way of airing his grievances for all the injustices from those superiors around him. As the survivor, Mr. Bang Lu Min accounts of the ordeal can tell, the whole situation can be averted should the police agency had known how to handle this crisis. From his accounts, the police show incompetence, negligence, untrained and not fitted for this crisis.
Inspector Mendoza did not really want to harm the hostages I believe but with all those bullets flying over his head which he knew he won’t live after all, he became agitated and alarmed that he will not live anyway to get the right justice he was fighting for. From Mr. Bang Lu Min accounts, Inspector Mendoza finally admitted his mistake and said sorry to everyone, dead or alive. He said, “he then ran towards the front of the bus where he would meet his maker”. He even warned them of stray bullets but it was too late. These bullets from outside probably hit some of the hostages not just Inspector Mendoza’s gun.
I believe Inspector Mendoza was not a bad man. Like those Chinese victims, he too was a victim of circumstances, a victim of injustice at that. Why I can tell that the case being charged to him by the Ombudsman is questionable and doubtful? He would not have sacrificed his own life in the first place if he was guilty of the charges or just a disgruntled officer with no point of direction. His action was his way of voicing his grievances for the rotten system in the agency. The rationale here is his cry for justice. He was not just a no non-sense “pulis-patola” who just wanted a shot for a show. He was a man of courage who stood up courageously and reminded everyone that there is really something wrong in the system.
He rose to the rank of a Senior Inspector without amassing any wealth nor power for being a policeman not like any other policemen, a regular PO3 for example, who possesses wealth and power inspite of the fact that the salary is just impossible to buy him a shelter for his family, yet a lot of these regular policemen enjoy prosperity because of corruption and bureaucracy in the police agency. A professionally self-made man whose children now all educated, the youngest being a Police Chief in an Abra town can tell this man was a man of integrity and principle. I call him one best example of a police officer that everyone should emulate.
A decorated police officer in one of Manila’s finest, he rose from a humble beginning in a small barangay of Banadero, Tanauan, Batangas to achieve a milestone as one of the Top 10 Policemen of the country. I knew him very well. Why I am saying this? He was a former classmate of mine from first year till we graduated in 1974 from high school. He was a diligent person who worked his way out to the top. He did not mind selling food stuffs in the bus in his younger years in the town of Tanauan just to support his studies because he knew that success comes from hard work. In my recollection of those days, he was intelligent in class and very cooperative in every way. We called him sir because he was our commandant in CAT. He was very responsible in handling every situation and we in the class knew that someday he would be a true leader with a successful career as a police officer or maybe a military man.
It is so sad that the whole HS Batch 74 will miss him so much in our coming Grand Reunion in January 2011 for which he was an officer and one of the organizers. He was our dear friend, classmate, buddy and our leader. He will forever live in our hearts for as long as we live. Our respect for this man is so great, not even an iota of doubt and surely he will be missed by people whom he helped in the past, people who believe in him for his stand to fight for the right to suppress the injustices. Let him be an example for those people who will stand to fight the kind of cruel injustices that plagues the system. He was a victim too, yet died in vain fighting for his right.
Mr. President, you still have my respect and I know it’s yet not too late to rectify the mistakes in the past. There’s no doubt in my mind that my former high school classmate would have gave in to your request should you have taken that crucial step to mediate personally. People perceived you as the ‘peoples’ president’ so don’t let this be taken away from you by indecisiveness. The bold and right decision are what we expect from you. Inspector Mendoza and the rest of the victims should have been alive today should the right step been taken. He would also be remembered once a junior police officer who defended the country during the times your mother, the late Pres. Cory Aquino who significantly braved and suppressed series of coup d’ in the early years of her presidency. NOW is the time to change, time also to clean your police agency. Start getting rid of the bad apples (abusive police superiors) so that crisis such as this won’t ever happen again….

Rodrigo M. Tabares
Mississauga, Ontario, Canada

Training ng mga pulis ang main factor sa tragedy na ito. Masyadong maaga para graduhan ang gobyerno ni NoyNoy dito. Ung mga magnanakaw na opisyal ng PNP sa mga nagdaang taon ang dapat na palayasin dhl imbes na ilagay nila sa training at pag improve ng serbisyo ng kapulisan eh ninakaw lang nila ang mga pondo. Etong si Lagman nagpapasikat lang itong hayup na kumunistang ito. Para lang masabing may ginagawa siya eh hindi nag iisip bago magcriticize.

Ninoy would have patched up and dialogued with the hostage-taker.

“DILG Sec. Jess Robredo should take full responsibility for the Manila Grandstand carnage. If the pitiful Prisco Nilo of Pagasa was axed by P-Noy for failure to predict the direction of the destructive typhoon, why not do the same to Robredo? Or are we back to the rotten “bata-bata” system?
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Mayor Lim was supposed to be the government representative being the mayor of Manila and was on the scene commanding/controlling the police and should have been blame and took the consequence especially that he ordered the arrest of the brother resulting to the bloody situation. Mayor Lim was the former boss of Mendoza and could have influence the situation better than the brother Mendoza.

Mayor Lim has a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Law and notably a Masters Degree in National Security Administration. He also was a former policeman since the 1950's. Was Mayor's Lim arrogance contributed to the crises? I think so.

Pnoy has no reason whatsoever to smile as he like. If he can't stop smiling then he has no reason to face the media at all and let somebody else do the talking for him who can handle the sensitivity of the issue better. He must put himself into the shoe of the relative's victim to effectively say sorry else he is a joke and an insult and would rather inflame more critism and worsen public relation of the government.

Please upgrade the government which means starting with the President. Learn some acting Pnoy so you can cry and smile in public if you must. Overhaul the whole PNP and retrain personel and hire foreign experts for education and traning. Advise your Cabinet and LGU that a policy to resign immediatley if mismanagement occur to signal that the government is serious for change. Upgrade universities to increase quality of education by adopting foreign educational system at school so their is enough people and resources to replace incompetent people in government especially legislature and representative. Put the bright filipinos in front against the trapo so that the country can move forward. Create more schoolars and send to other countries for better education and mandatory public service in return.