Super SWAT was kept out of the loop

By DJ Yap Philippine Daily Inquirer Most Read MANILA, Philippines—At the Manila Police District (MPD), there’s a faction within the Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) unit known mockingly as “Super SWAT,” an elite squad composed of veteran marksmen and arms experts. But Super SWAT was kept out of the loop during the Aug. 23 hostage drama at the Luneta Park that left eight tourists and the hostage-taker dead, much to the frustration of its leader, Senior Insp. Jonathan dela Cruz. “That’s not the SWAT I know,” he said of the unsure, bumbling unit of men whose assault on the bus taken hostage by former Senior Insp. Rolando Mendoza was captured live by cameras and made the subject of international derision. “It’s embarrassing. We’re going to be used as an example of what not to do in a hostage situation,” he said Thursday night in an interview with some of his team members in a Manila restaurant. Dela Cruz was supposed to have taken command of the MPD SWAT on Aug. 23, but a petition by some existing members—those who did not belong to his trusted circle—succeeded in retaining Chief Insp. Santiago Pascual as commander and keeping Dela Cruz and his team out of the action. Pascual was later relieved with three other SWAT leaders as a result of their handling of the hostage crisis. “Everybody here knows that it’s Dela Cruz who’s good. It’s a shame he wasn’t in command,” an MPD official not connected with SWAT nor with Dela Cruz said in a separate interview. “Politics did him in,” said the official, who did not want to be named for lack of clearance to speak on the subject. Watching in frustration At the height of the crisis, Dela Cruz said he was relegated to the sidelines, watching in frustration as the events unfolded. “I kept getting calls from people, from SWAT units in Metro Manila and my SWAT friends in the United States and Australia, and even British reporters, asking me what I was doing. They thought I was in command,” he said. “I just told them: ‘I’m not there.’” He said even his young daughters asked him, “Nandon ka (Were you there)?” and he felt embarrassed. He would do it differently Dela Cruz, 46, said he was not in any position to criticize and point out mistakes the SWAT members committed during the hostage crisis. However, he said he would have done things differently. First, with regard to intelligence work, he would work closely with the negotiators and interrogate hostages who had been released to determine the positions of those inside the bus, he said. Once their positions were known, the next step would be to determine the entry point and where to breach the vehicle. He said he would deploy only three people to storm the bus, but all of them must be fully decked in “Level 4” gear with bullet-proof vests and kneepads, Kevlar helmets, flashlights, M-16 rifles and handguns. “Then we would decide on what action to take during the worst case scenario. If the worst case scenario is that the hostage-taker starts shooting at the hostages, then we go in,” he said. Breach the front Dela Cruz said he would order his men to use a detonating cord to blast the front part of the bus, which, in his opinion, was the ideal place to breach. The three men would storm the vehicle, with halogen lights in position behind them to momentarily blind the hostage-taker. Their M-16 rifles would be equipped with flashlights to immediately zoom into the suspect and shoot him if necessary. “The most damage he could have done was to shoot one of us, but he wouldn’t be able to take all three of us down,” he said. “This would have been a good opportunity for Manila SWAT to show what it’s made of,” he said. “If the operation was successful, and I or one of my men died as a result, it would be worth it,” he said. Glory days Dela Cruz was commander of the MPD SWAT from 2007 to 2008, a period his subordinates liked to consider the “glory days” of the unit. “At that time, we were the ‘Best of the Best SWAT’ in the country, according to the SAF (Special Action Force),” he said. Super SWAT earned the moniker from its members’ penchant for wearing Level 4 gear all the time—decked out in bullet-proof vests, helmets and kneepads and carrying top-of-the-line M-16 rifles and handguns. “Some people thought we looked arrogant because we were wearing all our equipment. That’s when they started calling us ‘Super SWAT.’ They said we were elitists,” Dela Cruz said. One of his men chimed in: “It was not meant to be a compliment.” Improvise But Dela Cruz said: “We would need all that gear and equipment if we’re going to walk into a situation with confidence.” He said confidence was crucial in dealing with potentially deadly situations, citing one hostage-taking incident when his squad was called in. “When the hostage-taker fired a shot, the men from other units ducked for cover, but we remained standing. Then we walked over to get to the suspect.” He said his team, composed of less than 20 members, was a tightly knit family bonded together by a common interest in weapons and tactics. Dela Cruz said a good SWAT unit did not need astronomical funds to be effective. The commander just has to be resourceful in finding equipment for his team, he said. He said this was what he did when he was SWAT commander, constantly on the lookout for new devices and equipment and would improvise based on the resources they had. “In SWAT you don’t buy your equipment, you make your own,” he said, noting that the MPD SWAT currently uses Kevlar helmets and kneepads that he helped design when he was still commander. “But more than the equipment and gear, the most important thing in a SWAT unit is the people. These are the people behind you and in front of you. You want men who are skilled and you can trust,” he said. Trimming the fat Which was why as SWAT commander, Dela Cruz trimmed the unit’s personnel down from 100 to 25, provoking an outcry from those who did not make the cut. Dela Cruz said with scarce resources, he did not need 100 men to run a capable and efficient SWAT unit. “One bullet can give you experience ... It’s not about quantity of the manpower. It’s about the knowledge that your men have,” he said. He said his team was composed of men mostly in their 30s, unlike those deployed during the Luneta hostage crisis. “Those guys looked like they were still courting girls. They didn’t look like men raising families and building a future.” Floating status In 2008, Dela Cruz left the MPD SWAT to join the team of his former boss, Roberto Rosales, who was then just recently appointed director of the National Capital Regional Police Office (NCRPO). He was assigned to the NCRPO’s Light Reaction Unit. Then early this year, he was recommended to resume duty at the MPD SWAT. If he had been allowed to re-assume command, he would have trimmed the bloated personnel again. This was probably why the current SWAT members were reluctant to have him on board. The complaining members sent a petition to Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim asking him to retain Pascual as commander, a request that Lim granted. “I was put on floating status as a result,” he said. US-trained Sought for a reaction, Lim said he did not know Dela Cruz and was not privy to the internal workings of the MPD SWAT. Now, Dela Cruz said he had been recommended anew to head the MPD SWAT. But he said he was not confident that he would be reinstated. “With this interview, I don’t know if I’ll be allowed to go back. But I’m OK with that. I just felt somebody had to say something. Now is the time for everyone to evaluate what went wrong and what should be done,” he said. A civil engineering graduate of the Technological Institute of the Philippines, Dela Cruz joined the police force in 1987. “I rose from the ranks. I was PO1, PO2 and so on,” he said. From 1991-1996, he received training in counterterrorism strategy and tactics from specialized police forces in Louisiana, US. The training was sponsored by the US Embassy. Hostile encounters As MPD SWAT commander, Dela Cruz had faced a number of hostile encounters with criminal elements, from hostage dramas to hijacking incidents and pursuits of fugitives. But none were of the scale of the Aug. 23 incident at Luneta. By reputation, Dela Cruz is seen as something of a loose cannon. He often terrified subordinates by “trying out” bulletproof gear while they were wearing it, that is, he would shoot it to demonstrate that the bullet would not penetrate it. He also liked to experiment with explosives as a breaching tool. He admitted that a civilian was injured during one such experiment. “I took care of the hospital bills,” he said Published in Philippine Daily Inquirer August 28, 2010..

Kumakalat sa internet…. Panu ba ipagtatangol ang pinoy…marami ay totoo…..

Originally Posted by Genexyz  Heto pa masama niyan.. As a white person married to a filipina and father to two half dutch / filipino children, I feel for Philippines. I have sadness but I also have frustration and anger towards filipino culture (in some cases, filipino behaviour is idiotic)…because I see it in my wife, in my in-laws and her relations.  To most foreigners, we see and understand the bad things in filipino culture (and yet filipinos do not understand nor see the bad in themselves, why because you filipinos think that you are good people because you are catholics or born-agains….let me tell you, there are bad catholics and there are bad born-agains).  This sad story just highlights the idiotic nature of filipino culture and how it impacts on the filipino society. This bad side of the filipino culture was displayed over the world (via cable tv and internet, however we have ABS-CBN so we watched it live). I will try and explain in english and broken tagalog: Idiot 1: stupid filipino negotiator The filipino negotiator only talked for about 30 minutes then gave up. That is not how you do or practice negotiation skills in hostage situations. In other parts of the world, most negotiators do it for 48 hours. They give the hostagetaker lots of food and water to drink and talk to him all the time. The logic behind this is after 12 hours (of eating and drinking), they need to pee or poo (kailangan wee-wee at tae), so he have to get out of the bus, that’s when you need to attack him. Have you tried to talk on the phone when ebs is starting to come out? Its very hard. This is a technique filipino negotiators need to learn. Yes, the hostagetaker was given food…but it should have been more over a 48 hour period. After 48 hours, susuko din ito. Idiot 2: stupid swat team with a hammer There was a stupid swat team who was hammering the window with a long and heavy piledriver hammer. After 3 attempts he got tired, he needed to let go of the hammer and give his gun to his partner so he can rest. Well, next time try to work out in the gym, do some weights and jog to get fit. Sobra taba pagod agad. Idiot 3: emergency lock out on hydraulic doors All tour buses have an emergency lock out for the hydraulic doors. It’s located under the bus near the underside of the door. I saw on TV that they were trying to find out where the lock out is…instead the tababoy swat hammered the door, what did it do…nothing, it’s still remained close and he got tired somemore. In other parts of the world, the tactical response group practice everyday on how to attack or seige a hostage situation, they study all type of vehicles (airplanes, buses, trains, boats etc) and practice how to attack these positions. They study were the entry and exit are, where emergency doors are and how to stop these vehicles (just ask the Israel Tactical response group, they do this every day). Next time, study the layout of the bus first. Filipinos tend not to worry about what may happen, they only act when it is happening. Idiot 4: Roping the door Another swat team (the tababoy swat team have to be substituted he got tired) tried to rope the door and pull it using the Isuzu police truck…what happened? The rope broke….hellllloooo…..hydraulic doors are designed to stand against a lot of force and pressure. A rope made of abaca won’t open it. Idiot 5: The bystander boy who got shot in the leg A bystander got shot in the leg. Well, what do you expect? The swat team should have quarantined and sanctioned the area. Example: put a ribbon or barracade saying “Crime Scene” just like you see in the movies….or is the PNP to poor to buy one of those. Al bystanders should realise that they are not part of the event and if something happens to them it is their own fault. Buti nga sayo, buhay ka pa !! Idiot 6: Throwing tear gas into the bus It is idiotic to throw tear gas into a bus when nobody knew how many people were still alive. Of those dead people, I wonder how many died of tear gas suffocation. Of course, PNP will not admit it, they will say that the hostagetaker killed them. I do not trust filipino autospy. Filipinos tend to fake documents or stories to make them look good (it’s called ‘saving face’). As far as the PNP is concerned, the hostagetaker killed them and no other investigation is required. Idiot 7:Firing into the bus This is one of the most serious idiotic actions they did. Firing into the bus also creates ricochet (banda-banda). I wonder how many got killed because of this? Like number 6, PNP will not admit it. Idiot 8: Swat team entering after the tear gas This idiotic act is the one that made me laugh (and I am sure all tactical response group in the world will be using this as a “don’t do” training video because of its ‘kenkoy’ effect). Two swat teams enter the bus after they put the tear gas…what happened…they have to asked for help from the people outide to get them out because they cant breath…why…because they forgot the gas mask. Next time do an inventory of equipment you need in case of emergency Idiot 9: The treatment of the brother and family of the hostagetaker It was seen on TV that the wife, daughter and brother of the hostagetaker were treated poorly. Nobody helped them, not even the media. No person tried to help the family. In most society, a group of people will form a circle around the family to help them…nobody did that for them. Where is the people power…Philippines have done it before, why didn’t they do it then? No one offered help to the wife and the pregnant daughter, they saw their father killed in front of them. That is no way to treat people….for a country who claims to be ‘mapagmahal’, catholic and christian that was an utter embarrassment. Idiot 10: Corrupt police The hostagetaker wanted to clear his name because he was charged with corruption. Corruption…in the Phillippines….that’s news to me (sarcastic)!!! One policeman charged with corruption is not going to make a difference. Catching small corruption is not going to make a difference….the real corruption happens at the top of filipino government (ie Marcos, Erap, Arroyo).Us foreigners laugh at filipino stupidity because you do not learn, you get rid of Marcos because he was bad and corrupt, but still vote for Imelda and her children to become congressman and governor, give them a second chance to be corrupt again……so, nothing changed. That’s Corruption….and ‘katangahan ng pilipino’. In other countries, police treat one another like brothers and help them when they need it. It did not happen here. Idiot 11: Media and dead people This is the most idiotic and unacceptable behaviour that was displayed to the world. Filipino media is to be blamed for this. Respect and sensitivity should have been excersised by the media. They showed (in close up), the dead body of the hostagetaker hanging from the door with blood and brains dripping from the head, the dead body of a child and other dead bodies with blood being taken out of the bus. This should not have been televised. The relatives of the dead will not want it televised but the filipino media did. This is not good. Respect for the dead should have been observed. Idiot 12: Laughing sniper The sniper was interviewed by the media and he seemed to be happy and laughing when he told the reporter how he shot the hostagetaker in the head and that he was proud he killed him. The wife, daughter and father of the hostagetaker (watching from their province) will obviously will not want another person to hear how proud they were when he shot their husband / father. I hope that the sniper have a son, father, brother and I hope one day someone will shoot them infront of him and I want to know how he feels then. CONCLUSION: This will only give filipinos a bad name overseas. It will also affect filipinos who are born overseas, eventhough they have nothing to do with this, they will be judged of what filipinos in Philippines did.  For filipinos trying to get a visa to Canada, USA, UK, Europe etc…forget it…you will be judged by their immigration office for this kind of event. They already know that most filipinos are likely to be TNT and this backlash will make it even harder for filipinos to get visa. Ganti on DH I am sure, that Hong Kong / China will go on a massive revenge on filipina DH in hong kong. I am sure of it. HK and Chinese only see filipinas as lowly people who’s only role is to clean houses. PS: chinese people don’t know that Europeans look at them as lowly immigrants who clean toilets in europe….ganti din. Ganti on japayuki Also, Japanese people will take revenge on japayukis in Japan. Japanese people already treat filipinas like dirt and they will even treat them even worse because of this. Japanese people to not take filipinos in high regard…japanese only see filipinos as dirt people who will do anything just to get money (ie be japayuki in japan). Ganti on OFW in Saudi I’m sure too, that OFW in Saudi will also feel the revenge of people there because of this. I am sure that my children will be teased and bullied at school because of this. My children, regardless of being half-white are still brown in colour, with black hair (but with blue eyes) and people know they are half-filipinos.  So filipinos in Philippines, your stupidity in your country is also ‘hawa-hawa’ to other filipinos overseas…they get judged by what you filipinos in Philippines do to yourselves or to others. Internet order filipina brides will always get foreign husbands, unfortunately for filipino lalaki, there is no such thing as internet order filipino husbands (I never seen white woman with filipino husband), as more filipina marry foreigner more filipino lalaki are left behind in philippines (my wife said she does not like filipino lalaki because they are ‘tanga’…..I know she married me for money and greencard so she can send dollars to her batugan parents and batugan brothers, batugan cousins and batugan kapitbahay)….so, the only hope for Philippines is for half-foreigner and half-filipino children, half is better than stupid full-blood filipino. Ano masasabi ninyo??

Ashamed

By Conrado de Quiros Philippine Daily Inquirer YOU COULDN’T have watched the last few moments of the hostage-taking last Monday without feeling weak in the knees. And violently angry. The spectacle of so many dead, among them women, when they did not need to be so, there are no words to describe the absolute idiocy of it. GALLERY 1 2 3 Zoom    Read Full Story Sacking the entire officialdom of the Philippine National Police won’t do justice to it. A group of ROTC trainees or village watchmen, one that hadn’t undergone any training in the art of negotiation, would have done better. What is the first rule in hostage-taking? Secure the safety of the hostages. What was the first thing the cops did? Act like they were in an action movie. Why in hell couldn’t they simply agree to all the hostage-taker’s demands? Or put more brainlessly, why in hell couldn’t they simply have humored him? Was he asking for the release of the most dangerous criminals from Hong Kong? No. Was he asking for a jet that would take him to another country? No. Was he asking for a cache of weapons to be delivered to a terrorist organization? No. Was he asking for the most unreasonable, atrocious, despicable things in the world? No. He was asking to be given back his job. Which alone must suggest the brittle, fragile, stretched-to-breaking-point state of his mind. If you’re reasonably sane, will you possibly entertain the prospect of being reinstated after embarking on a course of action that terrorizes women and children, embarrasses the government, and threatens an international incident? You know you’re dealing with someone like that, and you don’t just go along with him the way you would a mental inmate holding a knife? What will it cost you to do it? You figure you’ll be bound by any agreement you get into that way? The tack of humoring him, or appeasing him, or calming him down was already producing results. He asked for food, and upon being given food, he released some hostages. He asked for gas to keep the engine and air-conditioning running, and upon being given gas, he released some hostages. He asked for the media, but that one wasn’t given to him. Now I can imagine that some anti-terrorist code book must say that terrorists should not be given the outlet to perorate on their agenda, but again what were we dealing with here? A guy who believed he was sacked unjustly. Who might have cluttered the airwaves with his views about how robbery and extortion are not just grounds for sacking a cop a few months going before retirement, but who cares? Talk is cheap. Lives are not. Was it so utterly inconceivable to the minds of the so-called negotiators there that if they had given him everything he asked, none of which remotely constituted murder, he would have released all his hostages? What boggles the mind is not understanding the mind of the hostage-taker, it is understanding the mind of the hostage-freers. Later they would keep saying as though it were proof of their professionalism, skill and preparedness that one of their sharpshooters managed to take the hostage-taker out with one shot after he went on a killing spree. Big deal. The question is: Why did he have to go on a killing spree to begin with? Leaving a trail of 10 dead bodies behind, including his own? That wasn’t unprovoked. What triggered it was the police deciding to storm the bus after “negotiations broke down.” Specifically after the hostage-taker flew into a rage after his brother, who had been brought to him and fulminated with him about the injustice of his plight, was removed from the premises, and he fired a warning shot. Why should that justify an assault? A hostage-taker flies into a rage, you wait for him to calm down. Negotiations break down, you wait for them to resume. Of course every hour that the situation drags on makes the hostages more tired and hungry and fearful. But better that than that the swift conclusion makes them dead. It was raining like mad that night. You could barely make out anything through the television cameras. The whole day, some officials were saying on TV that if this dragged on, it could hurt tourism. It would make the country the laughing stock of the world and keep the tourists out. So rather than pitch tent, drink coffee, and wait out the darkness, the downpour and the downed talks, the cops decided to attack. Who knows? They probably saw their names in the international news as the heroes of the day. They probably saw their names in the marquees in movies made after the deed. All they will see now is their names spattered in blood. All they ought to see now is their names spattered in blood. The Hong Kong government has slammed Philippine authorities for bungling the crisis. The world has slammed Philippine authorities for bungling the crisis. They have every reason to. This wasn’t a case of someone who was willing to blow himself up and everybody around him if the world did not convert to his beliefs. This was not a case of someone who was willing to shoot everybody up and himself along with it for the greater glory of his God. This wasn’t a case of someone who was willing to reduce the population of this planet because he heard voices in his head. This was a case of a deluded cop who wanted his job back. If you can bungle something like this, what can you not bungle? But beyond the anger, all I could see in my mind last Monday night while watching the mayhem with mouth agape was the faces of the hostages. Men, women and children who had been laughing earlier that day, taking pictures of the Luneta, reveling in the vistas of another country, wondering what new wonders the day would unfold. Who had now been thrown into depths of anguish. Who were now lying in stretchers, broken in mind and body. Who were now dead. I was ashamed. I am ashamed. Deeply, deeply ashamed.

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Hostage Taking .............Philippine Style

GALLERY

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HOSTAGE DRAMA Sequence of events in the hostage taking drama that transpired at the Quirino Grandstand 
Monday—from the negotiations until the police assault that led to the death of hostage-taker, former Senior 
Inspector Rolando Mendoza. Video taken by Cathy Miranda, INQUIRER.net | READ FULL STORY

Another blot in the country's image was seen yesterday August 23, 2010 in Manila, Philippines. It was a hostage drama that many believe the taking of life can be avoided if only the police have done their part as negotiators and peace keepers.Imagine the harm done to the image of the Philippines by the clumsiness and knowhow of the police which evidently is too wanting.

Police Senor. Inspector Rolando Mendoza, a dismissed police officer tried in vain to make himself reinstated to his former position, but instead killed about eight foreign tourist from Hong Kong inside a tourist  bus. He himself was killed by an sniper after it was known that many have been shot by him, as told by the driver who escaped from the bus early in the day, despite being handcuffed to the wheel of the bus.

Many who have seen the proceedings in their televisions have said that the killings could have been avoided if only the negotiators was patient enough and know what they are doing. They said that what trigger the anger of the hostage taker was the arrest of his younger brother who is only trying to help in the negotiation but being charged instead as accessory to the crime, whatever that is.

Another factor that triggered the anger of Mendoza is the letter coming from the Ombudsman which was  hand carried by Vice Mayor Isko Moreno, contents of which made him more hopeless. This only shows that people who think they can help but instead make the situation worse.Even if the message is the truth, it should be withheld from the hostage taker or better give him an assurance that the charges and decisions would be reviewed by competent and higher authorities,

Some psychologist say that near relatives can appease the tense situation, rather than police authorities who he claimed have done him wrong. It was unfortunate that in spite of the many awards and commendations received by him during his service, all these things was not considered. In layman's view, many says that the hostage taker have no intention of taking lives. It was only because of the incidents cited above that trigger the anger deep inside him which many said could have been avoided if the right persons was on the scene, like his wife, parents, children, best friend, former superiors  and other people that is part of his life before.

When the signal for the assault of the bus was given, many have seen the clumsiness of those who are giving and enforcing the command. We saw for a fact that only one sledge hammer is used that will surely attract the attention of the hostage taker, instead of assaulting the bus on all fronts or in unison. We know that the hostage taker is alone, so if he is attacked in all fronts he will not be able to cover himself or would not know where to defend his fort first.

They are doing the breaking of the glass doors and windows manually, so it would take time for them to finish, unlike when you use machines and other instruments that will make the task easy. We saw that one time they tried to drag the door by using a car in pulling it, but alas it took only a minute for the rope used to give way. They should used instead the tow cars that is very common in Manila that almost always is being used on protesting car owners by MMDA and private tow car companies, when they are caught parking on a no-parking zone.