We denied him a popsicle, and that triggered it

By Al S. Mendoza

STILL on the hostage-taking tragedy.

Any incident has three main characteristics: a problem, a solution, an ending.

So, what was the incident?

On August 23, a dismissed police captain hijacked a bus loaded with about 25 tourists from Hong Kong.  He ordered the bus driver to park the bus in front of the Quirino Grandstand in Luneta.

He had gone berserk, yes, but even a crazed person has a reason for doing something patently insane.

To cut to the chase, what would be your solution to that hostage crisis?

I say the hostage-taker was the solution.

Why did he do it?

Of course, the hostage-taker had the answer.

“I want to be reinstated in the police force as I was unjustly removed, with full retirement benefits given back to me,” he said.

Last year, the hostage-taker got yanked out of the police department after the Ombudsman found him guilty of alleged extortion.

But this was no time to debate.

To me, his reinstatement was central to the issue.

Why wasn’t it given a thought?

Who knows, it would have been over in a flash had his request been granted.

Against a man possessed and with demons swimming in his mind, it’s like you are dealing with a kid uncontrollably bawling, in that the only sure way to stop the toddler was to give in to his demand: a popsicle.

The “reinstatement” thing was the hostage-taker’s popsicle at that very moment.

Why wasn’t it given, pronto?

For all we know, that would have saved his life and also the lives of the eight tourists who tragically perished in the ensuing SWAT assault on the ill-fated bus nearly 11 hours into the drama.

Why the Ombudsman merely gave the hostage-taker a letter that said “we would review your case” boggles the mind forever.

It would, of course, be a lie to tell him he’d be reinstated but isn’t there such a thing as a white lie?

Against someone overtaken by evil, aren’t we licensed to deal with him, too, with trickery if only to save lives other than his?

When lives are at staked, the rules are absolutely different.  You don’t go by the book anymore.

I believe that once his precious “letter of reinstatement” had been handed him, it’d have been over.

That was the single, most potent solution to the problem.

And with the solution and problem probably done away with, the last phase of the operation would have come in handy – the ending, as in a movie.

And what would have been our ending?

We see the hostage-taker getting thrown behind bars and next haled to court for the crime of hostage-taking.

We would then lie to him, you say, because we told him we’d reinstate him once he surrendered?

Of course, we lied to him.  And we would have lied to him a thousand more times if only to save lives, including his.

Between lies and lives, which/who will you side with?

I rest my case.

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