TEAM EmMarah

Yesterday was an exceptionally dark day for the Filipino nation.

I felt like my country crumbled before me in dishonor.

I blogged twice, first during and the second after the whole fiasco and here are the links:

That's not really to plug anything but I don't want to get repetitive with what I produce.

Right now, I'm on the news, as I've been since who knows what time yesterday.

I just heard Ted Failon read off a text that

"The job of the media is to report. The job of the police was to keep people away. The media succeeded, the police failed."

I'm not really sure where to start, to be honest. I don't know anyone involved, I don't know who the hell Rolando Mendoza was (until last night and how he wanted to be re-instated), I was just part of the worldwide audience and I'm devastated. I'm devastated for the people involved, devastated for their families, devastated for the shame and dishonor brought to my country, devastated over how everything was handled.

Originally I had a post ready for today, pre-written and all. But I decided to move it to Thursday because there are important things that must be said.

First, with Mendoza.

He was a highly-decorated police officer, nothing but good things on the news, had ten awards, all that. Just a short time before he'd be able to retire he was dismissed for some extortion case or something. He lost his job, stripped of his benefits and wasn't allowed to work at any government office.

I have two things to say about that.

One, what kind of life did you expect him to lead? Might as well just throw his ass to jail. You stripped meaning out of his life and it came through. He went crazy, for the lack of a better term.

Two, who the hell cleared him to be okay and not have psychopath tendencies and all that? Who had the freaking idea of (and we're speculating here) having a fail sort of debriefing or something. Seriously, people don't take unemployment easily and when it's a person who knows how to use sh*t like guns and all those weapons, watch out. He freaking slashed a person at the neck! Imagine how that person slowly died as blood poured out his/her wound. How crazy was that?

Next, the whole media and police thing. Honestly, I don't know who to bash first, the media or the police.

Let's start with the media.

I feel sad and I can't believe that no one had the idea of "let's back off, we might cause all sorts of trouble." Knowledge is power. Mendoza had all the info he needed with the FULL radio and TV coverage.

The media is playing it clean saying that if only there was better control, if the officers just did better to instruct them and everything, they'd have backed off.

Seriously, am I the only one with a "wtf" face at that statement?

Seriously, there's a freaking hostage situation and those cops are already just -- I don't even know what they were doing -- and you expect them to have the freaking time to tell you to back off? Who the HELL thought it was a good idea to SHOW Mendoza's brother being taken to the precinct for questioning? Who the HELL thought it was a good idea to GIVE Mendoza every freaking angle? EVERY FREAKING ANGLE, MAN. The media served the freaking hostage taker and they're trying to say it wasn't their fault, need better control... Those idiots (I'm sorry but really they were) don't even know sh*t about buses.

Honestly? There was still SOME sense in Mendoza through the da

y. H

e was letting children go, letting the elderly go, all that! It was all fine and dandy until the whole issue with his brother. He was outraged, he wanted to be taken, not his brother. The survivors said the feel of the bus changed once Mendoza saw tha

t. It was the last straw.

Imagine how things would've have been different if the media didn't feed the enemy.

I'm just sayin'. Take that for what it's worth.

BUT OF COURSE, the police isn't off the hook.

I know that hostage situations aren't easy. They take lots of nerve and coming up with the best judgement in so little time with so much pressure is a big, big burden.

But I want to ask this.

Where's the training? I know that you can't be trained enough to know the best answer for every situation because it could go any way.

What I'm saying is, I expected good decisions, not the best. I expected better compared to what I saw.

Our police force doesn't have chains, doesn't have anything to bring a door down but a sledgehammer. Heck, they said they had training BUT looks like they don't know squat about buses because it took the public's information for them to know about the emergency door.

PNP budget? They have money to go to a convention in R

ussia but they don't have sh*t to open a bus? Are you freaking kidding me? SRSLY?

And who was the freaking MORON who knew they being watched and decided to take the freaking hostage taker's BROTHER? Who ordered that sh*t? Couldn't it have WAITED? Honestly, patience is a virtue. Where'd you get that idea? Keep him on site, he's not going anywhere, just don't do squat that'd make the hostage taker go crazy, damn it.

All the bad decisions, the faulty equipment, the calls that were made too late. I couldn't believe it.

Here's a picture that my friend found and posted on facebook that does an excellent job of bashing.

Training. Pssh.

Last is about our President -- Noynoy.

Used to be part of the oppostion, today Ted Failon pointed out a terrific point.

Being part of the opposition, it was easy to criticize every bit of failure by the administration.

Today they (him and his posse?) have to come into terms with the fact that they are the administration and they are the ones to take the hit in the balls.

How would you handle this now?

Gonna use Cory Magic?

What have we gotten out of this?

8 dead. Count them. EIGHT.

People injured, families destroyed, lives changed.

Here's what HK has to say for it

[Source]

And I'm sure we've pretty much duds in the international community.

I've said other things I've felt in my other two posts so there's that (don't want to be repetitive).

My question now is

Tips? Anything?

Right now I want to look for signs of hope. As you can see it has been all to easy to be negative, depressed and everything. It's a whole "OMG WE'RE DOOMED" situation.

I pray for those involved, especially those who died thinking they would have a wonderful adventure today, as well as their families.

What do you think about everything?

What do you think went wrong?

Any tips for the government/police/media/etc?

I wanna know what you think.

I think we're all united in how we see this. I hope we could make something good out of this like start a unified way of improving in life.

But this is it for now.

'Til the next stop,

Mara