crime – Page 12 – marichulambino.com

Hostage-taking in Manila

i know the police know the protocol in hostage-taking situations. This protocol- playbook is uniform and internationally practised/ recognized; and so, i never Monday- quarterback hostage-taking situations. (when the hostage-taker started shooting inside the bus, the breach, by protocol, was necessary; on the other hand, the daytime early negotiations done by the book, resulting in the release of more than half-a-dozen hostages, to the credit of the local officials, went well; this however leaves us with the 7:20pm spectacle, which resulted in disaster, leaving eight hostages dead). Since the 7:20pm fiasco involved media facilities, maybe i’m allowed to Monday- quarterback that.

The police did not manage the hostage-taker’s access to media facilities; nor to who else was communicating with him from the outside. At worst, the police did not know the hostage-taker had access to television and what kind of media/ communication facilities the bus had.

Because of the mismanagement of the hostage-taker’s access to media facilities and various communication lines and to the media, the hostage-taker viewed the spectacle of his brother, and young nephews and nieces, on the floor, being roughed up by the police in television news blow-by-blow; was enraged, and started shooting. The usual practice is that individuals who are allowed to talk to the hostage-taker are also secured, and their media-interviews, managed. These went south today.

i will not Monday- quarterback the warrantless arrest of the brother even if that involved legal issues because this was a hostage-taking situation maybe he had to be restrained because earlier he reportedly further inflamed his brother- hostage-taker when he allegedly told his brother- hostage-taker “don’t give up until they return my gun to me”; the situation became more volatile when the grappling and scuffle occurred, because the hostage-taker could see it in full, living color on TV. (for that matter, the so-called “arrest” was such a show of bruteness it shouldn’t have been done in such manner but i’m trying not to second-guess that at this time because the hostages’ lives were on the line).

Even with the tried-and-tested hostage-taking protocol-playbook, the police might have missed out on something. Teeny-weeny. The terrain. The terrain is not just Quirino grandstand. It’s the bus. They didn’t research it; what facilities it had inside and outside.They also didn’t manage who else and how many were talking to him from the outside. (okay, i limited myself to media facilities; this incident has a whole a lot of legal and ethical issues — maybe another day.)

(Lucky color today, says the morning show astrologer: Olive green.) Here is the first part of the video. the continuation has been posted earlier in this blog (previous post) so the discussion is subject to, or continued in the earlier post (don’t want to have to repeat it here, pakibasa na lang uli, tnx.). About 400 megabytes compressed into 55 megabytes, very grainy, on 24 frames per second, with the resulting dark horizontal band on the screen from 0:29 to 1:32 which covered the beautiful face of Gretchen Malalad, apologies. But it gets better from 4:00 onwards, the faces could be seen. By the way, the other day, the entertainment portal http://www.spot.ph released the results of its poll or survey: Gretchen Malalad was voted top ten “hottest’” newswomen. Gretchen in this video narrated the back story of the story, or how they came upon the aftermath of the “encounter”.

the blog discussion on the ethical issues is as follows: When the police chief apologized for one of his men for accusing ABS-CBN reporters of having “delayed” the police in bringing the injured person to the hospital, it was in effect a retraction, and the full footage clearly showed that the police held the injured person in their vehicle and called the ABS-CBN reporters to film him and ask him questions; so, it was clear that it was not the reporters who caused the delay or any delay.

The anchor, Tony Velasquez, then asked the crucial question: Should the camera crew continue filming an injured person or should they ask the police to bring the person to the hospital? (should the reporter tell the police what to do, or should the journalist ask the police instead what they are doing, or should the camera crew themselves intervene by bringing the injured person to the hospital?)

i said something like journalists on the field are in the best position to decide ethical questions like that, or when they should cease being journalists and “intervene” in the unfolding of events by, well, being human.

On the other hand, international media organizations such as CNN and BBC do not show images of dead people or of dying persons. In the Philippines, the codes of ethics of media organizations frown upon or proscribe showing the face of a dead person, or a zoomed-in image of the face of a dead person; media organizations also frown upon the showing of too much blood (if they have to, it is either pixelized or shown as a line shot or in black and white); mangled body parts are also not shown. Usually, local media organizations just show the feet or the hands of the dead person, or a long shot of the body. However, this situation is more complicated because the person was alive when in custody, police told the reporters they could film him, the camerastaff and reporter did not know, at first, the extent of the injuries, and to make matters even more complicated, he did not die of those injuries, the medical report stated that he died of asphyxiation, and he was in custody of the police when he died.

Gretchen Malalad also pointed out that they trusted the police to hold only a person who didn’t have to be rushed to the hospital right away. This video is continued in the earlier post.

Apologies again for the quality of the upload. Thanks for viewing!