hostages

I'm no expert. I don't know anything about police work or SWAT training. About the only time I've fired a real gun was in PE class. Whatever I know about tactical assaults or rescue missions I got from movies or computer games or books. So there. That's out of the way.

But I could not help myself from screaming at the television set as the Philippine National Police began their assault on the hijacked tourist bus at the Quirino Grandstand just a few hours ago.

Note that much of this is pure speculation on my part, albeit based on the live airing of the actual assault on local news media.

It was frustrating to see SWAT teams charging towards the bus just a scant few minutes after the bus driver was freed by the hostage-taker. It seemed to be a spur of the moment decision by the commander on the scene. No visible effort was made to verify the driver's claims that the hostages were dead, and when the police got to the bus they did not even try to check where the hostage-taker was.

Common sense alone is enough to tell you to look before you leap. In this case, the police blindly leapt into the assault, wildly smashing the bus' windows and doors with a sledgehammer.

Let me emphasize that. A sledgehammer.

There was a man confirmed to be armed with an M-16 rifle inside the bus and the police were attempting to gain entry into the bus with a sledgehammer. No attempt was made to at least surprise the gunman, even to at least stun him before the police made their move.

I'm just guessing here but shouldn't any half-decent assault have the assault team coming in through multiple entry points broken open by explosive charges and covered by smoke or stun grenades? With the aim of capturing or incapacitating the hostile target and getting any hostages out alive, of course. And it should all be over in just a few minutes.

This assault lasted well over a few minutes. Surprise and speed could have ended the hostage crisis less tragically, but the police threw them both away.

We were all treated to over thirty minutes of live video showing the sad and pathetic attempts of the police forces to gain entry into the bus. They used sledgehammers to smash the windows and the windshield and the door to no effect. They tried to smash through the back window. They tried to pull the door open with rope tied to a police vehicle. And it snapped.

The rope, not the door.

Shots were fired from inside the bus at different times during the assault, hitting one bystander. Police snipers appeared to be the only ones doing their job properly, as the gun man visibly avoided the windows after a few shots were heard from off-camera.

One patently pitiful scene showed police throwing flashbang grenades into the bus in an attempt to stun the hostage-taker. It was a good move, if only they had gotten the door or another entry point open first and used the precious few moments when the gunman would be incapacitated to get him and the remaining hostages out alive.

In the end, the police resorted to using tear gas. Yellow smoke filled the back of the bus and soon after the hostage-taker was forced to move to the front, where snipers took him out. As of this writing, the hostage-taker, Rolando Mendoza, himself a former police officer, and at least four hostages are confirmed dead.

It all could have ended worse, yes, but it sure as hell could have ended better.

SWAT means Special Weapons And Tactics. If the Philippine SWAT teams have sledgehammers as weapons and if this recent event shows the extent of their tactics then we have a very serious problem on our hands.

This has happened before. In 2007, 26 children were taken hostage inside a bus in front of the Manila City Hall. That hostage crisis ended peacefully, with no need for the police to stage an assault to free the hostages. What if something like this happens again? How many people need to die before we learn our lessons?

The government should take a long and hard look at the state of our country's security forces. I have been brutally critical of the police assault that ended the hostage crisis a few hours ago but I want to point out that I am criticizing the weapons and the tactics used by the police, and not their bravery or their dedication to their jobs.

It was painfully clear on the TV screen earlier today that even with a depressingly inadequate inventory and a seemingly poorly planned and executed assault attempt the police still braved the rain pouring down from the sky and the bullets flying out of the bus.

We have no shortage of dedicated police men and women, or of soldiers, sailors, and pilots. What we have is a shortage of equipment and training. What we have is a shortage of funding and support for the men and women we all eventually blame for the use of unnecessary force or human rights violations or for letting hostage crises spiral out of control.

This tragic event is another challenge for the new Aquino administration. The problem has been laid out for everyone to see. I was switching between GMA7, CNN, BBC, and Al Jazeera as the hostage crisis dragged on and I saw the same thing on all channels: a police force in dire need of proper support and training.

Well, at least much of the same thing.

I was able to see every single move of the police during the final assault on the bus. I knew when snipers fired and when police vehicles moved. I learned about where and when the police moved another SWAT team into position. GMA7 reporters detailed every move the police made, and their cameras covered every angle. CNN showed live feed from ABS-CBN. The BBC had its own camera on the scene, as did Al Jazeera.

Now that's not a really bad thing. Every Filipino and, with CNN, BBC, and Al Jazeera broadcasting live from Manila, every soul on the planet could watch as the police moved in and killed Rolando Mendoza. Information on demand, live and in color.

Every soul on the planet, including the hostage-taker watching on the television set inside the bus, could see every move the police made.

Oops.

CNN, BBC, and Al Jazeera are not available without a cable connection. But GMA7 and other local channels could be seen on the bus' TV. And they were all reporting live from all around the bus.

Maybe our local media practitioners should read Guidelines for Covering Hostage-Taking Crises, Prison Uprisings, Terrorist Actions from Poynter Online. It states first and foremost that

In covering a developing raid or law enforcement action, journalists are advised to:

Be extremely cautious to not compromise the secrecy of officials' planning and execution.

Everything was laid out for everyone to see in this latest crisis. This brings back memories of the Oakwood Mutiny, or of the more recent Manila Peninsula crisis, where the local news media reported every move of government security forces and, in the case of the Manila Peninsula crisis, blatantly ignored government orders for their reporters to evacuate the hotel prior to an armed assault.

The freedom of the press is a constitutionally guaranteed right in this country. But it is not, and cannot be used as, an excuse for putting the lives of innocent civilians - in this case, the remaining hostages - or of the soldiers or police at grave risk. Making live broadcasts of troop movements or SWAT team deployments puts the lives of those men and women at risk. Showing that an assault is imminent puts the hostages' lives at risk.

I said earlier that much of the same thing was on all the channels. Indeed, all showed live video from the Quirino Grandstand. Except for the BBC, that is, which had a small note below its video feed stating that "images are delayed for 10 seconds due to threats to kill".

That's a good thing. It denied the hostage-taker, if ever he had access to the BBC video, real-time knowledge of police movements. And the BBC and Al Jazeera cameras were all focused on the front of the bus - a far cry from GMA7's three video feeds showing every side of the bus.

What gave us all the excuse to criticize every move the police made also gave Rolando Mendoza a real-time view of what was happening outside his bus. And that gave him a marked advantage over the police SWAT teams.

He could have watched their every move while they could only guess at his whereabouts and disposition inside the bus.

We could all speculate on whether or not the media actually caused the crisis to spiral out of control or if it actually had a hand in the bloody shootout that ended it - I do not know for sure if Rolando Mendoza actually watched the live news reports inside the bus - but one fact remains: the news media's handling of this and other crises in the past put lives at risk.

It would have been better if the media refrained from showing the moves of security forces while keeping its viewers informed of developments in the crisis - not blow-by-blow accounts of police actions.

What this latest crisis has taught us is that improvements have to be made by both the police and the media. These improvements in training and support for the police force, and in more responsible reporting in the media, should be implemented as soon as possible.

Next time, the casualties could be even higher.