Quirino Grandstand Hostage Rescue – Some thoughts

Last Monday was one of the worst Mondays to ever hit the country.  In the space of 12 hours, the country’s image took a very big hit with the hostage incident and the bungled rescue effort.  While hostage crises happen in other countries as well, the response of the supposedly elite SWAT team left much to be desired.

Manila's Finest in action

What Happened?

A complete timeline can be found here.  To summarize things, an ex-cop named Rolando Mendoza took a bus full of tourists from Hong Kong hostage.  He wanted to be reinstated in the police force, as he was expelled due to a case regarding extortion.  The police did their usual thing in surrounding the bus and negotiating with the hostage-taker.  So far, so good.  Just another one of those hostage situations.

He could have been shot by this time.

It started to break down some time around 6pm when the Ombudsman’s letter was delivered.  It was hoped that it would resolve the crisis, but this was not the case.  As tensions rose, someone ordered the arrest of Gregorio Mendoza, the brother of the hostage taker who is also a policeman.

It is speculated that this is what drove the hostage taker over the edge, since he was monitoring everything on the television set inside the bus, and all of these events unfolded live on national television.  Soon after, shots were heard and the driver of the bus was seen running away, saying that all of the hostages have been shot.  An assault was immediately mustered…

…And everyone now knows what happened.  From 7:41pm to 8:43pm, the police struggled to open the bus door, to break the bus windows, and generally trying everything they could think of to bust inside.  An hour after the assault began, the hostage taker was dead, but hostages died with him.

What went wrong?

The Manila SWAT team was subject to much scrutiny and criticism after this incident, even from its own members.  Most of the comments centered on their lack of equipment, the lack of training, and most importantly, the lack of decisiveness which prevented them from enjoying the shock and awe effect so important to subduing or killing the hostage taker without endangering the hostages.  The carnage resulted from some key errors that included:

Live media coverage. The media had front-row seats to the whole affair, and so did the entire world.  That also meant that Mendoza was able to monitor the actions of the police force, from arresting his brother to the movements of the assault force.  Information asymmetry surprisingly favored the hostage taker, as he knew what was happening outside but the police force didn’t know what was going on inside the bus.  This was disastrous, as Mendoza was able to prepare for whatever the police team was working on.

Taking control of the tactical situation.  One journalist from Reuters mentioned that it was like a movie set, because the floodlights of the Quirino Grandstand illuminated everything perfectly.  Because it was dark inside the bus, it was obvious that even without media coverage, Mendoza still had a better view of the outside world than the outside world would have had of him.  The tactical situation clearly favored Mendoza – the clear field of fire around the bus and the lights amounted to a well-lit shooting gallery for him, had he chosen to attack the assault force.  It denied the assault force a stealthy entry that would enhance the effects of a violent and decisive assault.

Crowd control and the lack of expertise in handling the situation also took their toll.  Even now, people are starting to point fingers at each other as to who actually had responsibility for which actions.  The lack of a clear chain of command looks bad now, but it was infinitely worse in a scenario where everyone had to move promptly and purposefully.  That required a voice of command recognized by all, which wasn’t the case here.

In a situation like this, the ideal approach would be to deny as much information as possible to the hostage taker.  This means that the authorities would be able to manipulate information to their advantage in resolving the issue.  However, there was no attempt to do this.  Mendoza was on the phone, could watch television, and he was in the middle of an area bathed in light.  With all these advantages, it is surprising that some hostages actually survived.

Decision to use SWAT.  The Armed Forces of the Philippines had the Army Scout Rangers, the Marine Force Reconnaissance and Scout Snipers, the Navy Special Warfare Group, and the Light Reaction Company, with personnel drawn from the other elite forces.  Every single one of those units have had training and experience with hostage taking situations, but their offer was turned down.  The Manila police also turned down the offer of the Special Action Force of the Philippine National Police, a commando unit of the police trained along the lines of the Special Air Service.  The reason given was that SWAT seemed capable.  That reasoning is not enough. “Seemingly capable” would not be enough to risk the lives of hostages, not when there are other units that are actually capable of doing the same thing.

That is like going to race and then choosing a Lancer Evolution over a Formula One car simply because the Lancer can race, just not against more powerful cars.  That was the case in the incident last Monday.  Naturally, there is the matter of jurisdiction, but I think with lives at stake, there should have been more thought given to this decision.

Lack of decisiveness. After the decision was made to use SWAT, they immediately showed the world just how badly they have been trained.  Perhaps this video would show it better.

Underestimating the hostage taker. Rolando Mendoza was from all accounts, a decorated cop with all the training, experience, and skills it implied.  Regardless of the shenanigans that caused him to be expelled from service, he had the tactical sense to park the bus in an area that offered him a clear field of fire, the knowledge of police tactics that enabled him to deny them access to the bus, and the good sense to fire only when policemen were already inside the bus, sending them scampering for cover.  That meant that the police should not have been overconfident about the situation, thinking that it’s another run-of-the-mill hostage incident.

Second, it’s amazing that they actually thought they can deal with the hostage taker.  The mind of Mendoza that made him think taking a bus full of tourists hostage would get him back into the force is a mind that has been warped far beyond rationality.  That means he should have been considered dangerous from the start and the hostages considered as in mortal peril.  Apparently, either it did not occur to the police, or they didn’t bother pursuing that line of thought.

Training and equipment could be criticized, but they did have the training and they did have the equipment.  What was lacking was direction and a firm hand to control their actions.  Up against an opponent with the advantages mentioned above, and you have the perfect elements of a bad action film.  Except of course, it caused 8 real people to die in this instance.

What Can Be Done?

The video above has been making the rounds in Facebook as the textbook case for an assault for a bus.  Although the tactical situation might be different, speed was the primary consideration in the assault.  Notice as well how they were firing into positions occupied just a second or two later by their comrades.  That level of competence, confidence, and decisiveness must be the objective of any new training program for hostage situations.

As SWAT units all over the archipelago now prepare for a similar incident in their respective jurisdictions, a more critical view of the protocols on hostage situations, if they exist, must be done.  The protocol is the rule book that everyone must consult, and even the presence of the best-equipped and -trained hostage rescue force would not equate to success if the people in charge do not know what they should do.

The protocol should include the following:

1. Lethal force is to be used at the soonest possible time. It’s not about deterrence or lust for blood.  It’s practicality.  Once all hostage takers are identified and an opportunity is presented where they can be shot without any risk for the hostages, that opportunity should immediately be taken by the ground commander without the need to consult higher authority.

2. Complete tactical control of the situation must be imposed. Cellphone and radio jamming, lights or the lack thereof, media presence, crowd control – everything that could help the assault force deny information to the hostage taker must be subject to the control of the ground commander.  It will give the negotiator more things to work with (trading hostages for trivial concessions instead of more serious ones) and allow the assault force to set up their attack with fewer risks.

3. A clear chain of command. There should be a ground commander in charge of everything.  The tactical commander (leader of the assault force), the negotiator, and perhaps another commander in charge of crowd control, should all report to the ground commander and obey his orders promptly.

4. One professional negotiator. There should only be one negotiator, and that someone should be a professional.  Letting politicians and media personalities negotiate with the hostage taker should be avoided at all costs.  Not only does it allow the rescue team to better manipulate the hostage taker, it would also allow them to assess risks to the hostages better.

Hopefully, this incident would demonstrate the penalties of failure on the Manila police force and everyone else involved in rescuing hostages.  As politicians and police officials bicker and point fingers, it would be great if they remember that the entire point of a police force is to risk their lives to protect others.

The Tragedy of Land Reform

NOTE: This entry was written several years ago and published in a website devoted to free market ideals.  With the current attempts by people such as Walden Bello to push land reform to the top of the Aquino administration’s agenda, this entry is revived once more, with certain revisions.

The new government of P-Noy is being pushed by some sectors to revitalize the land reform program.  Rather than packaged solely as a pro-poor initiative, one must ask the question: What should we do to land reform to further the goals of economic development and food security for the nation?

The answer is simple: Abandon land reform. That statement is easy for the writer, who has no political career, but it would be disaster for any politician who hopes to remain in power or even be promoted. Every Philippine President since Quezon has used land reform to buy support from the masses, and a lot of rebellions since the Spanish era can be traced to complaints by disenfranchised farmers. People have taken it for granted that land reform, with massive government support, is the solution to the problem of landless farmers and recurrent rice crises.

Social Justice

But what is land reform? Is it not fair to distribute to the farmers the same land that they have tilled for generations? Why should we care about the exploitative landowners? And is it not the duty of the government to help the poor farmers?

The idea behind land reform is that of correcting the great social injustice heaped upon our farmers. For hundreds of years, they have been little more than serfs, tied to the land that they till, generation after generation. Giving them the land will be fair compensation for their sufferings, stretching all the way back to the Spanish era, when they have been taken advantage of by friars, politicians, and other members of the elite. I am not about to dispute nor belittle the suffering of our farmers. I understand the powerful hunger for land that drives farmers to the arms of revolutionaries and politicians. They are given a pittance for their labors, cheated on the prices of their produce, and compelled to burden their descendants with debts just to keep their farms going when everything needed (grain, feed, fertilizer) is given to them by landlords at prices they cannot afford.

But will it be just to give them the land? That after all is the rightful property of the landowners, however monstrous they may be. Is it just to provide a blanket law to affect all landowners whether they were good or bad to their tenants? Cloaking land reform under the banner of social justice violates our democratic process of due process. Current landowners will be punished for crimes that might or might not have been committed by their ancestors. They may or may not be doing the same things to their tenants, but can’t we just punish the erring landowners for practices that violate our labor laws? We are a civilized nation that will not punish someone for being the son of a child rapist simply because he was born into the wrong family, but we meekly accept the verdict imposed on all those who own land without question. The same principle is involved, but somehow the proponents of land reform were able to isolate the agricultural situation from the greater scheme of things.

There is another argument: The Spanish friars and conquistadors stole the land from our ancestors and compelled them to slave away for the benefit of the landowning class. Since the property is stolen in the first place, then we can get it back from them to serve the cause of justice. This argument is really irritating, because the current legal framework was not in existence then, and therefore all property transfers from parent to child since that time are legal and cannot be declared illegal ex post facto. But we don’t have to nitpick. All land before the time of the Spaniards was more or less communal. So how can anyone own the land, except for the people themselves? The problem is further complicated by the fact that the Republic of the Philippines traces its descent not from the barangay polities that the Spaniards found, but from the Spanish colonial structure. In short, there is no legal nor moral means by which to redress any perceived injustice that happened 500 years ago. It would be as absurd as ejecting every single white American from the United States and giving their land back to the Indians.

The Economies of Scale

If we cannot rationalize land reform through populist and socialist polemics, perhaps land reform could be justified in terms of productivity. After all, small private plots in the Soviet Union managed to supply most of the food needs of that country when their collective agricultural system was lurching from one disastrous harvest to another. It also has the added benefit of equitably distributing the revenues once earned by large estates to the farmers who would get the full profit of their labors.

Whoever thought about this seriously misunderstood the landlord-tenant relationship beyond that of exploiter-exploited of Marxist dialectics. The landlord, however maligned, provides capital, the necessary infrastructure and technology transfer to assure the continued productivity of his land. Most importantly, he provides the interface between the dealer and the farmer, providing for both of them the best possible prices for their produce.

For some reason, big estates are anathema to a lot of people, who see in them the source of wealth and power for a decadent elite. But looking beyond the political blinds of socialists, one sees a player in the rice market who is at the mercy of market forces. What does this mean? Cutthroat competition compels these farms to become more and more productive even as they reduce the costs of production to enable them to reduce the market prices of their products. The result would be quality rice in abundance at ridiculously cheap prices. Consider the huge farmlands in the United States that have been able to provide not just for the US, but to much of the world. How do they do this? Scientific methods and the application of relevant technology.

But it’s not enough to just have farmers adopt the latest technological wonders. There are questions of capital infusion, technical know-how, and the often overlooked aspect of relevance. Technology is expensive, and it’s not just about tractors. It includes scientific methods of care and protection for crops, and the knowledge to apply them properly. But with the costs of technology, the farmer must also address the practical aspect of benefits versus costs. It would be absurd to expect a farmer to invest hundreds of thousands of pesos for improving farmland that cannot pay for the cost of technology by its own produce. It’s better to invest the money in a large farm that can absorb the costs better and produce enough to justify the investment.

Sure, the farmers of adjacent plots can form cooperatives to finance and maintain their technological innovations. But how feasible is this? This means that the technology and materials would become communal property, and decades of collectivized agriculture has shown that incentives of caring for materials vanish when no one owns these materials. Even if all the farmers in a hypothetical village would band together and act responsibly, how long will this last? All it takes is one farmer willing to sell out, and all their efforts would be for naught.

The Government and Land Reform

Even before the Roman Empire, land reform has been used by politicians to manipulate people into submission. History since before the Roman Empire has been replete with examples of wily leaders who were able to grab or hold on to power through the use of land distribution to buy support from the masses. Even if we are to consider most of these people as sincere in their aspirations to help the landless, has it done good to the farmers that they are supposed to help?

Whenever the government undertakes an activity, this activity must be controlled and monitored by a bureaucracy. One cannot just say chuck the bureaucracy away, because this provides the means to implement the policies of the government with the necessary check and balance to assure the public that taxpayers’ money is not being wasted. Inevitably, these bureaucrats would see more merit in maintaining the forms and guidelines around them than in keeping the actual goals of the project in mind. After all, their performance and chances for promotion are based on these pieces of paper. It would be too much to expect people to act contrary to the incentives that pander to their self-interest.

Thus the farmer is dehumanized. He becomes a number or a name that simply fills out the proper space in the correct form. It becomes more tragic in a country such as the Philippines, where land reform has been used to throw a bone to the farmers hungry for land, and they are held hostage by what suits the government in power. Even in countries where land reform has been said to succeed, such as in Taiwan, it was done with much suffering for both landlords and peasant farmers. They are denied the freedom to decide their fate. How much land should they have? How should they go about raising their crops?

And it’s not just the farmers. Productivity for such small-sized farms can only maintained through heavy government subsidies. This is unfair for taxpayers, who are compelled to buy at full price rice and sugar that they have already paid for through their taxes. Unfair because they bought the lands to distribute to farmers, and not all of these lands would be farmed. As farmers age and their progeny decide to seek their fortunes in other fields, we are left with increasingly small farmlands with dwindling productions that cannot sustain an expanding population.

What is the solution? I am not calling for the government to compel farmers to remain farmers. That defeats the purpose of a democracy where everyone should be free to decide their own fate. Rather, the government should stop meddling in agriculture and let the market decide. A lucrative agricultural industry would lure many to try their hand in it. They should be allowed to do so, without limits on the growth of their business. Let those who wish to stay in agriculture prosper, and this prosperity can only happen only if they are given enough land to enjoy the benefits of technological advances in profitable ways. Abolish land reform.