| FRONTLINE |
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| Ninez Cacho-Olivares |
It was pretty clear, from the start of the live coverage on the hostage situation, where the rescue operations was all botched up, leaving eight Hong Kong residents dead, and where the hostage taker, Rolando Mendoza, a sacked police official, died too, that the broadcast media violated a lot of the guidelines agreed upon earlier between the police and the broadcast media.
But it is wrong to place full blame for the botched rescue operations on the broadcast media, mainly because it was not just the media at fault, but the incompetence of both the national and the local government and their officials and officers, top to bottom, which resulted in the appalling mishandling of the rescue. The probe body is wrong to lay it on the broadcast media, as if they could have done something to stop the bloodbath.
It was just as appalling to know that none of these officials — including Noynoy Aquino — saw this hostage taking as just a local crisis only, not a national crisis and an international crisis.
Clearly, there was a lack of leadership, from start to finish of the botched hostage rescue operations.
What is sad is that these deaths need not have happened at all, if all those officials — including the President of the Republic — showed both leadership, direction and competence..... MORESource: The Daily Tribune
URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100909com2.html
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