There are dead people and several others seriously injured, and this Mayor of Manila is splitting hairs.
I ordered them to handcuff him, but there was no order to make an arrest.
Manila Mayor, Alfredo Lim told a press conference at the Manila City Hall.
Gone are the days, when the King himself rode on his horse and led his warriors into battle. Today, we have leaders who are nothing better than armchair managers whose behinds are glued to their seats and are rarely seen at the scene when there is a crisis.
Then comes the Joke of the Century!!!
Lim also pointed out that his orders to handcuff Gregorio were not carried out because “they (MPD) still have to look for handcuffs.”
And a dash of face saving…
Gregorio was struggling with his colleagues while being dragged to a waiting police car. Another policeman managed to secure a pair of handcuffs from the nearby precinct at the Rizal Park.
As the police were to about to handcuff Gregorio, Lim said he prevented them and ordered the lawmen to bring Gregorio to the MPD General Assignments Section for investigation.
So, Mr. Mayor Lim
What exactly did you order or re-order and in your rigmarole of armchair managing, you now have become an accessory for the death of innocent Hong Kong tourists because…
Observers said what might have triggered the killing of the hostages was when Mendoza saw his younger brother being arrested on television.
Gregorio is a policeman but unless he was on duty and within his area of jurisdiction, he’s not allowed to carry firearms. Unless he’s part of the negotiation team, he’s no authority to go near rolando too.
I understand what you wanted to point out but as you see, Mayor Lim is a former policeman and his foresight on situations like this, for me, is understandable. His order to restrain Rolando is not only for the negotiation but to prevent other threats as well.
Just imagine what will happen if negotiations fail and the police go on assault, do you think an armed bystander will just allow his brother to just be assaulted and still do nothing? Just imagine if Gregorio, already armed, empathizes with his brother and joins him in the bus, the police will now be contending with two armed men.
Preposterous, you might think but this scenario is quite possible considering that Gregorio, instead of asking rolando to surrender, even mentioned some things to which weren’t helpful in the situation and even agitated his brother (like the police not returning his gun).
This is quite a big issue and I’m afraid people who are really responsible for what happened will get lose just because they were able to shift the blame to someone else.
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