On August 23rd, a 12-hour hostage standoff on a hijacked Philippine bus ended in the pouring rain. Among the 15 HongKong tourists, there are 8 of them unfortunately gunned down by an angry Philippine ex-policeman. According to the local hospital, these hostages were killed when local policemen started taking by storm. At last, the policeman shot the hostage-taker dead and 7 Hongkong tourists were released.

 

In the whole rescue process, the hostage-taker had released several hostages, including some aged tourists. That makes me feel that this hostage-taker actually did not want to kill anybody at first. But why this issue ended in tragedy? I am not convinced about several points in this issue, and I can not help thinking: who should take the blame in this big tragedy?

 

First of all, we should make clear that the reason why this Philippine man commit a crime. Rolando Mendoza, the hostage-taker, was once awarded the prize of Ten Outstanding Policemen in the year 1986. Recently, he got fired because he was suspected of being involved in some drug cases. Yesterday, in the negotiation process, Mendoza brought forward two demands, one is to resume his post, the other is to compensate the material loss during his jobless time.  As far as I am concerned, maybe the ex-policeman hoped the government could pay attention on his own case, or maybe there are some doubtful points in his involving cases. Moreover, according to the follow-up reports, Mendoza, the hostage-taker, has three children, and one of his children is also a policeman. Such a "policeman family" shouldn't commit a crime.

 

In the secomd place, someone says that the social security is poor in Philippine, many policemen have already get fired because they did not want to cooperate in investigation of their own drug cases, and their living condition is poor. Maybe that could  be one of the reason that why this ex-policeman were going to commit the crime.

 

However, hijack the tour bus is obviously Mendoza's fault, and he should take all the responsibility. But why the Philippine policemen did not put the lives of those hostages at first place and agreed the hostage-taker's demands at first, or temporarily, and to get those hostages released?  From my viewpoint, the local policemen should let the hostage-taker believe in them and agree with the demands temporarily to get the tourists released at first, then they could punish the hostage-taker according to the law.  

 

In short, I think if these policemen could change to another method to deal with this issue, then maybe the tragedy would not happen.