Philippines' Hostage Drama in Quirino Grandstand

It happened yesterday August 23, 2010 at 7A.M.  A former police officer named Rolando Mendoza took the bus of Hong Thai Travel with Chinese nationalities (adults and children) as the passengers.  The hostage drama took for more than 12 hours.

What was his reason? He wanted his service to be reinstated which he could work to any government firms and he could get his benefits.  To know more about him click here.  With the situation of hijack and hostage, I think it was really impossible to give what he wanted because he already did a crime.

The brother of the hostage taker, Gregorio Mendoza, was accused as an accessory of the incident that is why policemen took him forcefully.  When the hostage-taker knew about it, he was really angry about it and we heard shooting inside the bus.  When the policemen took the brother of the hostage-taker, I asked myself what can they get from him? Taking him was a wrong strategy and that made the hostage-taker very angry.

Rolando Mendoza, the hostage-taker, was not easy to beat.  Come to think of it, he was a former policeman, not just an ordinary policeman but a Superintendent and a Captain (correct me if I'm wrong).  Take note, the hostage drama took more than 12 hours.  An ordinary hostage taker won't take that too long.

Who would have thought that the driver who was handcuffed on the driver's seat, escaped from the bus and misinformed the people, the media and the police that all the people on the bus were all killed? I think the hostage-taker wanted him to escaped and he wanted us to be misinformed to fool the policemen.

The policemen, there were so unready, no strategies, no plan and all.  You can read a blogger's analysis here on what went wrong. He also has a point.