MANILA, Philippines - Filipinos remain on the receiving end of criticism following the hostage incident at the Quirino Grandstand, which made headlines across the globe.
Filipino-Chinese Teresita Ang-See, chairwoman of the People's Law Enforcement Board, said several people expressed outrage and scathing remarks over Monday's tragedy that killed 8 Hong Kong nationals, referring to pages of reactions from the Chinese community.
"In the Takong Pao, a Hong Kong newspaper, invectives were being thrown at the way the crisis was handled," Ang-See said in an interview at ANC's The Rundown on Wednesday.
According to Ang-See, some of them particularly noted that the Philippine government didn't give enough importance to the tragedy.
Some members of the Chinese community, for one, wanted to see the resignation of high-level officials as done by their government at the height of the melamine scare.
"I had to tell them, it's not how we do things, we're a democracy. We go through due process before we pinpoint," she explained. Hong Kong has already called for an independent investigation of the incident.
She may have defended our government, but Ang-See stressed that the Aquino administration should still issue an apology to Hong Kong and own up to the "indefensible accident."
"They (government) should stop being defensive because it is indefensible. They should just apologize, admit that everything that should not have been done was done," she said.
Ang-See also scored the media coverage during the hostage-taking. "Part of it is the media's fault. Your job should not come above the lives of the victims," she said.
She continued, "As far as I know, after the Jun Ducat incident, Melinda Quintos-De Jesus had come up with that protocol on how media should deal with the hostage crisis. Ninety-percent of that protocol went down the drain (this time). Nobody paid attention to it."
A call for sobriety
Despite the anger and frustration, Ang-See noted that many Hong Kong nationals and Filipino-Chinese accept and sympathize with the Philippines.
"Most Filipino-Chinese will stand behind the government and Filipinos on this issue," she said.
Several faults may have been made, and lives were lost, but now's not the time to point fingers at others, Ang-See stressed. She made the statement as she asked the Chinese community "not to add racism to an existing problem."
Instead of saying hurtful words, Ang-See said it would be better if we all help the Philippines stand up from this tragedy.
"We are sad and enraged that this happened, but this is an isolated case and we should help the Philippine government move on and recover from this," she explained.
Source: ABS-CBN
