a major major drawback for filipinos

No one's to be blamed.

Although we would like to point our silly fingers to anyone just to satiate that feeling of "I-would-not-do-that-gosh-that's-a-shame-for-Filipinos" stance. In the first place, we would never know what would happen in case we were in that muddy pool where the hostage-taker was in. We could only blame because we thought we could do something but we couldn't. The media and the police failed but their situation could only offer as much as our minds were mangled in the thought that something better could be done. We sat there on the edge of our seats dumbfounded, grief-stricken, angry, repulsed by the thought that a fellow Filipino had done such but we could only air our concern, the retribution strategy we're planning, in front of the television. We could just sit there and do anything but help in such crisis.

Blaming the media for such an unwittingly airing of the hostage crisis will just slap us the fact that this is their job first and foremost. Although there was a major backfire, but everyone's just doing their job, the police on their part and the media on their own part as well. There is an issue of regulating the media coverage in cases such as this. But where will we draw the line? How will we draw the line? And then we will all return again to the blaming habit. It is the government's responsibility and we will all end blaming the Head of the State. But Pnoy can only extend as much help by excruciatingly uncovering a solution from the deepest recesses of his brain. It's not that nobody cared and nobody did something, but it's the fact that it's what the circumstance offered and all we need to do is to learn our lesson now. We can blame as much and care as less but this will not solve the problem. I hope this crisis will not escalate our sickening habit of blaming the likes of Rolando Mendoza, a fellow Filipino, even when issues died down. This would soon pass. But the shattered pieces of our faith to our fellow countrymen will take some time of mending. I hope that we can show as much faith as the other nationalities showed sympathy to us amidst this national tragedy.

Again, this will be a matter of choice for us. We can choose to blame or not. But the solution should always start from us. And this I think should not be a matter of choice.