Pathetic

Pathetic.

If there's a list of perfect words to describe how the police and the SWAT team handled the hostage taking yesterday, that would be on top of the list.

S.W.A.T. in our country means " Shit Wala Akong Training " [Shit I wasn't trained for this] (my friend Rod, posted this in Facebook).

Everyone who saw the coverage will agree that it wasn't handled well. Im no expert in crisis management but I don't have to be one to make a precise point that they had absolutely no clue on how to handle the hostage taker.

First they made the grave error of frustrating an already desperate man, (apparently one of his requests got declined) and aggravated the situation by agitating the dismissed policeman.We all saw how he reacted after the police arrested his brother.

Where was the negotiator? What did he do? How did the negotiation collapse and why did it have to turn out so violently?

If there is one thing that the police force was extremely good at, it was acting. They all performed like they were in an action film, the stance, the poise of an action star when he holds a rifle. Those were all present. They also showed that they have the talent for comedy, there was a footage of them throwing the tear gas at the back of the bus and it bounced back at them. A little slapstick though but it works all the time, my father and I couldn't stop laughing.

Which brings me to my central point and points back to my first premise. How can we laugh at this situation? How can the police handling a crisis situation become laughable when they were supposed to be our shining knight in the direst of times? It was obvious how unprepared they were, but how can I not laugh at their stupidity after seeing them try to enter the bus only to go back a few seconds after with a face so messed up a painter would have a hard time drawing it on canvass because they could not stand the fumes from the tear gas? Somebody please kill me now.

They did not have any plan, mishandled the situation, and they showed the world how ill-equipped our police force is. Supposedly the most elite team among the entire police squad, our SWAT team appeared like ROTC cadets on their first day.

And again we humiliated ourselves while the whole world was watching.

Pathetic.

Life defined by a minute

Have you ever had a day when you wish you can go back in time just for that one minute tha could have made that day better?

I do, almost every day. And counting on the number of minutes I've had maybe things would have been much different if it weren't for that minute. That 60 seconds of time I can never get back.

I'll start when I woke up this morning

@ 4:15am I didn't get up all at once and I chose to leave my bed at 4:16am

I took my breakfast, went on with my daily morning rituals and left the house by 4:35am

I took the bus at 4:45am.

The bus was at Ortigas by 5:30am but the stupid driver decided he needs to wait for passengers and got stuck at Shaw Boulevard (Crossing). I took a desperate glance at my phone's watch and saw its already 5:40am. I hesitated and decided to get off the bus by 5:41am.

I took the bus going to Ayala, arriving at the office at 6:02am.

I was late for 2 minutes. All because of a minute of hesitation and another minute of spending time with the cobwebs in my head as I was feeling all woozy from waking up.

And I lost *2000 pesos just because I was late.

(*Perfect attendance incentive that requires 100% attendance and zero tardiness)