Three

By Conrado de Quiros
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 22:17:00 08/25/2010


ONE, THE brother.

Frankly, I don’t understand why they brought him there at all. I’ve always thought the standard procedure in hostage situations was to bring the wife and kids to talk to the hostage-taker, not the brother. Certainly not the cop brother. It’s basic psychology. The point is to melt the heart of the hostage-taker, not to harden it. Nothing melts the heart of a hostage-taker, particularly a Filipino one, than the wife and kids.

The presence of the wife and kids jolts the hostage-taker from his tunnel vision and makes him rediscover two things. One is that there are people who love him, who depend upon him, and who will mourn his death. Two, and more importantly, his hostages are people with families too who love them, who depend upon them, and who will mourn their deaths. The point of negotiations is to wear down the hostage-taker emotionally so that he gives up, not to assault him physically so that he loses nothing by fighting back.

The absence of any psychologist on the scene last Monday is the clearest sign we have little capability to handle hostage-taking, a fairly common occurrence in these parts. Dealing with hostage-takers seems to be just a subset of dealing with terrorists. One where the overarching response, despite all talk to the contrary, is not, “Talk him out of it,” but “Take him out.”

It does take out the hostage-taker. But, as Monday’s events show, along with the hostages.

Two, the media.

Did the media contribute to the mayhem? The finger-pointing has gone its way too. The charges are that: 1. it agitated the hostage-taker, particularly with the footage of his brother being taken away, and, 2. it gave the cops’ position away.

I don’t buy it. Rolando Mendoza didn’t need TV to know his brother was being forcibly taken away, he was right there. One moment he was talking to him, the next his brother was cursing as he was being led away. And while that set him into a rage, it did not set him into a murderous rage. His response was only to fire a shot at the window.

He started shooting at his hostages only when the police started shooting at him. That is, when they mounted their assault on him. Bad reporting from the media may agitate a hostage-taker but only really bad tactics from the police can agitate him murderously. Nothing agitates a hostage-taker to murderous rage than being shot upon. That was the murderously stupid idea. The one who ordered the shooting down of the hostage-taker while he was in full command of the bus ought to be shot.

The blame for the carnage lies solely on the police. The negotiations had broken down? Then build them up again. Why should your default mode be to attack?

Having said this, however, I also would like to call for rules in the coverage of events like this. It is one thing to be enterprising, it is another to be reckless. It is one thing to be exclusive, it is another to be intrusive. It is one thing to safeguard the public’s right to know, it is another to guarantee the hostages’ right to live.

The conduct of the broadcast media last Monday night tilted violently in the direction of intrusiveness, recklessness, get-the-scoop-at-all-cost. It wasn’t just what TV was reporting, it was how TV was reporting. The tenor was emotional, shrill and at one point hysterical. The point of negotiating with a hostage-taker is to control the psychological environment to persuade him to give up his plan, which is why you need a psychologist there. You cannot control the psychological environment when people are scurrying to and fro to get closer to the hostage-taker and take shots of him (photographic ones), rushing hither and thither to get sound bites, and turning a la “Mad City” and “Dog Day Afternoon” a minor atrocity into a raging circus.

I’m not for keeping TV out of these events or incidents. That will do more harm than good, and before long we’ll be complaining from the other end: That police operations are so wrapped in secrecy you don’t know whether suspects are being killed in firefights or executed gangland-style. But I do think reporters in such coverage ought to exercise tremendous discipline, or be made to. Lives are at stake.

I agree it will take some doing. Over the last 10 years or so, TV in particular has shown a fetish for making a “reality show” out of everything. Which has really only succeeded in giving audiences an unreal view of reality, one that is grotesque, superficial and artificial. And one that’s cultivating a voyeuristic mentality. Voyeurism was the hallmark of the reportage last Monday. Big Brother meets Big Dealer.

The only problem with last Monday’s reality show was that the blood was real. But that too will soon fade into unreality as TV takes on other realities.

Three was the crowd.

That was the one that, downpour and all, rain pools and all, darkness and all, rushed to the scene of mayhem after the police ringed the bus and indicated with various signs the whole thing was over. That was the one that grew thick and fast around the bus, impeding the progress of the ambulances that were speeding their way toward the wounded, the shrill wailing of their sirens being taken as mere suggestions to get out of the way. That was the one that surged toward the door of the bus as bodies were being lifted out, that minded being pushed aside by the cops while they gaped, gawked and took pictures with their cellphones. That was the one that rushed there, surged there, and stood there unmindful of the rain, unmindful of the emergency, unmindful of the dead, staring at the blood and gore without compassion or commiseration, staring at the blood and gore only with curiosity.

You had to ask yourself: What the hell kind of people are we?

I am ashamed. Deeply, deeply ashamed.