Siu Lun

Life is to be enjoyed, doing things you love. You only live to see on average 7, 10-year cycles, make the most of it.

If you just focus on what you love doing, so long as you are still able to eat and have a roof over yourself. Fame and fortune are by-products when you become good at what you’re doing.

Unless you’ve lived under a rock, or in the west or middle east, you would’ve got wind of the fact that yesterday night, a tour bus comprised of happy summer holiday makers from Hong Kong was hijacked and the day ended with Philippines Police Force trying to storm the bus and in the end 8 completely innocent holiday makers were killed.

I happened to have watched the entire situation reveal itself on live TV here in Hong Kong and I am furious at the Philippines police’s seemingly don’t give a fuck attitude towards the entier situation and I will list all the failing I witnessed below and those of you who’re interested can verify my claims on recoded TV footages if you can find one.

• During the day, police negotiators were standing right next to the hijacker at the front of the tour bus negotiating for the release of the hostage. Police negotiators could’ve grabbed the hijacker and pulled him out of the bus and restrained him and ended the day peacefully, but no.
• As above, the hijacker was in the door in full view of the snipers, they could’ve ended the day by injuring/killed the hijacker, but no
• The hijacker’s brothers who’re also police officers should’ve been either kept in isolation as the situation unfolded but no, they first of all asked their help, then later tried to arrest them, this was the catalyst that started the end of the hostage situation with the hijacker started shooting hostages after his brother’s arrest.
• The reason why the hijacker knew is because there was TV coverage, and the hijacker can see it on TV, it should’ve been obvious that such hijackings should always have restricted TV coverage to ensure information is only available to the police force, but no, they decided to broadcast it.
• The police force moved in onto the bus after a couple of gun shots in the bus, but took an hour after surrounding the bus before being able to kill the hijacker,
• The siege on the bus, the police SWAT team were complete amateurs, first of all taking 30 minutes smashing up ALL the windows of the bus, before trying to pull the door of the bus down with a car and a rope. Which ended up with the rope snapping!!
• A random police officer then managed to pull the handle of the emergency exit door wide open, the police force acted in amusement that it opened and decided to drive a golf cart in as a platform for police to board the bus.
• As the first officer boarded the bus, the route into the bus is hard to get on, and there was no turning back for him, but he HAD a bullet proof shield, however he was shot as he moved in as he was not using the shield properly and he dropped out of the bus as he was shot.
• Many more gunshots were heard on the bus and seen on the windows, but apparently snipers were unable to kill the hijacker as they did not know his position. (On the tiny bus)

Above were all the failings I’ve witnessed on live TV yesterday night.

Now I’ll put in my thoughts.

Why didn’t the police shoot him in midday when he was in full view?

Why when night broke, and shots were fired, snipers could not kill the lone gunman? Did they not have infrared cameras and amor penetrating bullets that could’ve went straight through the bus and into the hijacker?

I give them the benefit of a doubt that they’re literally such a poor country that they can’t afford those two objects in their entire nation. Why did they not ask other embassy for the equipment. I refuse to think that there wasn’t even 1 unit of those equipment in that country.

Why did the line broke when they try to pull the front door open? Could they not afford a strong rope?

Why did it take them 30 minutes to break each of the window of the bus? Why don’t they have more than 1 axe/mullet?

All in all, it was an epic fail, and the entire high-ranking police official of the Philippines as well as whoever in-charge of the operation yesterday along with his/her tactician should be fired.

An official inquiry and a report from the Philippines government will not answer any of the above questions as they’ll more than likely fabricate the event to their favor. Given the corruption claims and only a couple of days ago claims of the use of torture in the Philippines police force.

All I want to say, and I’m sure many other Hong Kong people would as well. We don’t need your report or inquiry, just fire all of them, admit the failings and compensate for all the families that have been affected. No amount of compensation you give would settle the grieve the families will have to live through the rest of their lives and trauma they face the Philippines government should take FULL responsibility for them and for fuck sake train your police, the ‘SWAT’ are amateurs.

A group of counter-strike playing gamers in the US could’ve taken on that lone gunmen without casualties.

I also want to touch on the fact that while many in Hong Kong are furious, I also want to pressure Mr. Donald Tsang to be more aggressive and demanding much like the Chinese official have. I find it very disappointing that he seems like a cat without claws on many issues surrounding Hong Kong and every public appearance he has been on it seems very much like a puppet show.