The Response of PNP during Hostage Situations

In the Philippines, hostage situation is not usually a thing. However, there are
times that such unforeseen event happened and it ended in a success of the rescue or
a failure which ends in tragedy.

August 23, 2010 marked one of the greatest Philippine National Police’s failures
on the ensuing hostage taking incident. The horrific incident exposed the PNP’s
incompetence at that time. The hostage crisis lasted for 9 hours and all the attempts of
the police to initiate rescue, including negotiations seeming fell on deaf ears. Rolando
Mendoza, the hostage taker took the lives of 8 civilians. The failure of the police is
rooted on the problem where the police force of the Aquino administration lacked
discipline and patience, as well as proper training in handling such drastic situation. The
result of such incompetence ended in failure to uphold the ABCs of the hostage
situations. The incident ended in 9 deaths including the hostage taker.

Alchie Paray a security guard of the Greenhills Shopping Center held a

hostage crisis incident. 55 people were involved in the incident along with the security
guard who confronted him which he shoots twice. Although the crisis ended in a
peaceful resolution, the crisis could’ve avoided unnecessary injury as well as ended
early. There are a lot of loopholes in the handling of the PNP during the incident and the
victim shouldn’t have suffered longer than intended. This proves that the PNP’s
handling of the crisis lacked wit and foresight.

I think that the PNP should work more in communicating with the hostage taker in
order to effectively negotiate. They should also consider empathy and mirror the
hostage taker’s take on the situation which prompted him to resort to such
unprecedented measures. I expected that those police who graduated from the
academy (PNPA) could’ve studied more on such matter in order to effectively respond,
but I guess they haven’t really seriously given it enough time and focus. I hope the fiture
endeavors of the PNP on such matter improved drastically than what weve witnessed
so far.