Lull Pause and Rolling Heads: A late reaction to the hostage crisis

I haven’t been blogging… it was a mix of a lack of motivation and some sort of depression.

But now, I suppose, I’m a little back.

Must I say when I was on break, I have been keeping myself occupied, despite the longing for fall TV season, I have been:

Watching 4 seasons of Big Love, season 1 of 10 things I hate about you, season 1 of the Good Wife, season 3 of True Blood, Season1 of Modern Family, Half of season 1 of Pretty Little Liars, Season 1 of Cougar Town, and Season 3 of Millionaire Matchmaker, and I read 8 books of Charlaine Harris’s Southern Vampire Series.

I did this at night while it was all quiet and no one was there to bother me out of my escapism.

I could have been more productive but as we can surmise, I wasn’t sure what state I was in… am I happy? Am I sad? Am I confused? Am I numb? I’m not quite sure.

Currently, I am reading Dead in the Family and about to read Nina Garcia’s latest book, The Look Book, while watching a rerun of a Strictly Politics special (while waiting for the US Open coverage to air later), where they had a panel talking about the hostage crisis. They are at this very moment talking about heads that should roll.

Yes, perhaps heads should roll. But on the other hand, I don’t want the government to just keep on rolling all the heads at random just so we can satisfy the demands of the Hong Kong people’s grief.

Of course, they’re grieving. Of course, they’re mad… because our policemen were idiots. I saw the hostage feed live and I, a lay person, a woman who on most days no one takes seriously (because of my over indulgence in makeup and fashion accessories…) could definitely come up with a better plan.

All these discussions - It’s just a little too late, that’s all.

But I just had to say these things (and join the bandwagon): The police could have shot him with some tranquilizer, shot the bus with tear gas earlier (yes the tourist would have some discomfort but at least they wouldn’t be dead, or they could have (since they had no equipment – no ladders, gas masks, night vision goggles or whatever it is that they needed) just hit the bus with a truck to disorient the guy.

Or: they could have disabled him when he was smiling there while the door is open and he was eyeing the cameras. Someone could have grabbed his hand and did a martial arts move or someone could have stunned gun him since his gun was not even raised. Or they could have just told him they were giving him his job back and afterwards, commit him to an institution, since he clearly was unstable.

So many things...

The comments of the guests were right when they said that everything was handled in mediocrity. It was. AND to me, I kept getting obsessive compulsive about how the government handled their crisis control PR. Yes, there was a disaster but in the aftermath, there’s no excuse for further mediocrity.

Every move they made, masses, public apologies, sending of flowers, commiserating with the HK people, etc – everything was done (and to quote Rihanna): too little, too late.

It has been said that GMA could probably have handled this crisis better, I have no doubt about this – well, first she had years more on experience in office and second, she’s far too much an expert on covering up and PR-ing, um, shady matters. Aquino is a newbie and as a friend of mine puts it, he’s probably just a well meaning dum dum. He didn’t have to work for too much as he inherited his parent’s legacy that has pushed him to the presidency. This is true, I suppose.

Every time I watch another PR move gone wrong, I tell myself I could do better than this. I know most people say they can come up with better ideas to handle the hostage – maybe because they probably can - OR maybe because everyone just wishes the government would do something (anything) to just stop the bleeding.

I seriously hope the government can pull themselves together and learn something from this and I hope whatever learning they acquire, they put into (speedy) action. It’s not a time to keep on blaming everyone or a time to be political (as most have been) or a time to be stupid.

Let’s not get started on Bong Revilla’s stupid anti-usisero bill or the stupid police people taking pictures in front of the bus like morons.

Heads should roll. BUT heads should not roll at random. I only hope the real idiots, the real people who are responsible, are held accountable.

Or actually, if heads should roll, I recommend the government to fire all those police/SOCO people who had their photos in front of the bus that's circulating over the internet. THEIR heads should ROLL HARD.