Lessons from the Luneta hostage incident

Lessons from the Luneta hostage incident

First off, let me offer my condolences to the families of the hostages that died at the incident. It’s very sad as they were guests in our country.

I will not engage in fault finding here but rather provide possible solutions that will lower the probability of a similar outcome in the future. My source of data is basically what were shown on television.

1. Our policemen showed dedication to duty but were ill-trained, ill-equipped and with no proper standard operating procedures. I have read in the past that there are units that are specially trained in this kind of situation but it seems they were not used here. Maybe turf conflicts? The proper standard operating procedures or protocol, training, and equipment must now be implemented immediately.
2. The media, egged on by their seal to produce news and maybe even ratings, inadvertantly provided the hostage-taker with situational awareness that he should not have. A protocol for media coverage must now be implemented for these kinds of situations. But I am sure the media will try to use all its powers to oppose and circumvent this.
3. The bus was not properly isolated from people and communications. Thus the need for proper crowd control, cellphone signal blocker, TV signal jammer, etc. for situations like this.
4. The negotiator did a good job initially and was able to secure the release of hostages. Our negotiators must be well-versed with Pilipino behavioral patterns, as their negotiator training came from Western training that is based on Western behavior.
5. The handling of the hostage-taker’s family backfired. Assuming that the brother was feeding information to the hostage-taker, he was already isolated and effectively neutralized. No need already for the dramatics that angered the hostage-taker.
6. Assuming that the Office of the Ombudsman was lax in responding to the letters of the hostage-taker, this may be due to the inordinate time that government employees spend on the Internet doing personal unofficial tasks during official office hours. The government must now manage this waste both in time and money spent on inappropriate and unneeded ICT systems.
7. The Office of the Ombudsman should be investigated on how it handled the hostage-taker’s case that ignited this incident. I hope it is not similar to the way it handled the Aroyo cases.

Moving forward, let us extend all the courtesies to the victims and their families. Tourism inflow will surely dip on the short term but with genuine reforms in the management of this kind of situation, that I hope the news media will cover, tourism will surely recover. And our people will have renewed confidence on our police to properly handle such situations in the future.

Anti Poor - Proposed 12 year Basic Education

The proposed 12 year Basic Education program of the Department of Education is anti poor. It is anti poor because:

1. It adds two years expenses for parents before their children can graduate - at least 20% more expenses that could have been used for other basic needs such as food, clothing, housing, health, etc.
2. It adds at least 20% more costs to the government that could have been used for more important productive uses such as irrigation systems, roads, agricultural production facilities, health, reforestation, Exclusive Economic Zone protection, water systems, waterway rehabilitation, housing, etc., etc.
3. 20% more students are in the non-productive mode in the education system, rather than in the productive employment mode.

The only sectors that I can see who will benefit from the proposed 12 year Basic Education program, and who will naturally support this are:

1. School owners - it will mean 20% more students resulting to higher revenues and profits
2. Book publishers - it will mean 20% more books resulting to higher revenues and profits
3. School supplies businesses - it will mean 20% more school supplies resulting to higher revenues and profits
4. Construction companies - it will mean a one time 20% more buildings and facilities resulting to higher revenues and profits
5. School bus operators - it will mean 20% more students to transport resulting to higher revenues and profits

As we can see, it´s the rich business owners who will benefit from the proposed 12 year Basic Education program. And the poor who will suffer the consequences.

The rationale for the proposed 12 year Basic Education program is that our graduates pale in comparison to the graduates of those countries that have 12 year Basic Education program, like the U.S. I beg to disagree with this as our high school graduates are as competitive in the entrance examinations to U.S. colleges and Universities. Our college graduates are also in high demand by foreign employers.

It is accepted that the Basic Education program needs to be improved. But it should not be anti poor that will lead to the situation where more of the poor will become Out Of School Youth, thus continuing and exacerbating the poverty cycle.

Instead, what must be done is to make the present Basic Education program more affordable to the poor and universally available. The money for the additional 2 year levels should be spent on this, instead of spending it to benefit the richer sectors of the society.

The main things that should be done are:

1. Maintain 1:30 teacher to student ratio in every class
2. Maintain 1:1 class to classroom ratio in every school
3. Concentrate on Reading, Writing, and Values on the first two years
4. Stop the textbook churn where textbooks are constantly changed, benefiting only the book publishers and corrupt officials while producing error-prone books
5. Standardize school building designs that can be used as calamity evacuation areas, to reduce cost and corruption
6. Provide all teachers access to computers to ease their work load and research
7. Stop all demolition of school buildings until no. 2 above is reached, and require repairs instead
8. Increase the basic salary of teachers to P25,000 per month
9. Use Information and Communications Technology such as the computer, Internet, cell phone, radio, television, to make education accessible to all

The primary objective of the Basic Education program is to graduate productive and nationalistic Pilipinos.