The Philippines is our country and it is our priority to change it. As the current generation of reformers, our choices today will change what we will do tomorrow. But really, are we acting like the generation of Reformers, or the generation that takes Free speech a little bit too seriously?
Let’s take what had happened in China. Oh boy, this is where it hit the fan. Now, I don’t blame the three, who may or may not have known what they were carrying, but the reaction of the Filipinos was something I did not care for.
Our reaction was very much anticipated, and my heart goes out to the people whose family member had died, but do we have to take it out on China? Do we have to blame the people? Remember the hostage crisis! Remember when the news agencies reported on the Chinese reactions on the death of their countrymen?
It was a more or less a professional take for the Media. Some of them gave their sentiments to those who bore the retribution of the Chinese, but how did we take the China’s execution of three drug mules? Roughly the same way. So it was entirely wrong when we got pissed at China when they started becoming prejudiced against us.
Sure we didn’t hack a government website, but that’s because we can’t hack theirs. We need to remember that we can’t blame the Chinese for the mess, and we ourselves are the only ones to blame.
We didn’t catch those carrying the drugs, we didn’t stop those dealers and we sure as hell did not think about the Chinese point of view. They can’t let off three people just because of a petition, a government favor or a mass prayer rally of slacktivists.
No, these are the people who suffered through the Opium wars, whose workforce was once crippled by drugs and then subjugated by the British afterwards. These people once killed an English drug mule for the same reasons. What does the British have that we don’t? Oh I don’t know, a first world economy and influence of greater strength than China. And did that stop China from killing him? No. So what chance did we have?
Our reaction to the event itself was unsettling. Loads of spam and flames started appearing on the Chinese groups, pages and boards. I’m pretty sure some confused Chinese man is opening his Facebook page to see lots of messages saying “Your Prostitute Mother” in Google translated Mandarin.
The people who go on to message boards spewing “INTSIK BEHO”, “MURDER CHINA, KILLER!” and my personal favorite “CHINA MOST UGLY, KILLER, COUNTRY IN THE WORLD” from more or less people who were in COLLEGE. These are the people who we entrust the future of our country. The people older than me and yet I have better grammar, spelling and view than they did. Not to mention use of letters and not numbers.
The Chinese’ reactions to the Manila crisis was much more applicable to the situation than our own. For one, innocent people died due to a lunatic gunman in a situation that even their own police can easily stop. Instead of showing the world we can handle our own mess, we simply made mistake after mistake.
How many times did they try the tear gas? How many times did they try to break the door? How many times was Rolando in plain view of a sniper? And we say that the execution of these three is a mistake? We just make ourselves look like fools. Both situations are our own fault.
It is time to wake up from this delusion that we’re the greatest people in the world. Rather than living in a delusion that we made for ourselves, let’s get our head out of the sand and heed the truth of it all. Rather than continue praying and not taking action, let’s stop living in a dream world of a perfect Philippines and do something to achieve that goal. For it’s one thing to pray to God, and another to make it a reality.
About the Author
Linewave has written 1 stories on this site.
Carlo Yu is a writer and student. Currently as a member of the school's Paper and spearheading it's projects. He writes for his own website and blog, and is an admin for a few forum...s. His website is "practice.carloyu.com"
Am not a member of the swat but I was thinking they could have used some night vision goggles or they could have contacted the bus company for the layout inside the bus..If the Government can’t provide adequate training for their elite team..they should at least let them watch CSI I guess. All I’m really saying is, there are tons of other options that could have been done. It was a freak show to be honest.
Regarding the 3 drug mules it’s surprising and sad that they didn’t even realized they were to be executed until the last minute. Let’s just respect the Chinese people’s law, it’s their turf and their terms. They should have investigated it further, who knows maybe they did.
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Linewave Reply:
April 4th, 2011 at 3:56 am
I agree. All those mistakes that they made… Just a disgrace. I’ve played counter strike before, and I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t make the same mistake of tear gas in a confined space. Imagine the health risks, Rolando may have even started shooting wildly.
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J Reply:
April 7th, 2011 at 3:31 am
-For the bus jacking, they could have used some mirror to know Rolando’s location.
-Also, instead of “knocking” on the doors of the bus with a hammer, they could’ve just shot the hinge of the door so it will break.
-Probably this is why Rolando had the confidence to bus-jack in the first place, because he know how the police works, the weaknesses, the equipments, etc etc.
The government is also to blame for this, I mean look at our leader, a wimpy mama’s boy who can’t even form his own family. Remember Bayani Fernando? even though it’s inhuman, I like his style of discipline. This is the nature of Filipinos, if you become lenient they’ll abuse you, that’s why we need a strong firm hand to guide us.
What kind of a leader would you choose? a soft-hearted one who will give us fish or a cruel leader who will teach us to survive for ourselves?
Okay, Let’s say that our current mama’s boy is religious, but it doesn’t mean that what he does is for the good of many right? It can be to a good of one but for the bad of many.
Here is an example of what his soft-heartedness caused:
-Bus jacking incident where several Chinese were killed
-Rolando has an assault rifle with him so he’s considered hostile
-In a hostage crisis situation, negotiations is an option if they can’t bring the Hostage taker down, like if he is inside a bldg hiding without a clear shot – However there are plenty of openings to take him down yet why didn’t they grabbed the opportunity to take him down?
In the old testament, God drowned the wicked and spared the righteous.
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As a foreigner living in the Philippines I have to abide by the laws of this country and accept the punishment given by the courts should i transgress the law.
Do I agree with all the laws here, of course not but I have chosen to live here so have to accept ALL the laws of this Nation.
Of course it is sad that 3 people lost heir lives, maybe they were duped maybe they were desperate but the law is the law ans without it we have chaos.
But also i am sad I do not see people talking about the peoples lives who will be ruined and even lost by this vile trade, the law is not infallible but without it what do we have.
I seem to remember not so long ago the Philippine shaving the Death penalty and i am certain the Philippines did not like it when other countries told them they could not use a legal arm on of the legal system here.
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Linewave Reply:
April 4th, 2011 at 7:48 am
I agree. Our laws are not entirely sane at most times, but we have to respect their reactions and views. China was right, upholding their laws. We don’t even uphold most of ours, hell Ampatuan is still around isn’t he?
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kind of like what happened to auschwitz. no amount of prayers saved the jews there from getting gassed, shot & incinerated. and the people here expected “God” to listen to their preyers for “Him” to save the 3!? seriously, get real people. get real…
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Atroxxx Reply:
April 4th, 2011 at 1:44 am
PRAYERS & not preyers. apologies for the misspell…
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Jay Reply:
April 7th, 2011 at 4:08 am
Now now, the Jews don’t believe in jesus christ or God so the Catholics kindly overlooked this that nasty genocide that had no implications to their religion.
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Hindi pa rin ba to tapos? Kakasawa na. Iba naman.
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Ray Rodriguez Reply:
April 4th, 2011 at 8:58 pm
Sige at mag smuggle ka ng droga sa China nang ikaw naman ang ma feature. Bwahaha.
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The three Filipino OFW drug mules; took the risks, for easy money; they were caught, and paid for their lives…what all the unnecessary outrages that we are giving to the Chinese. It is their laws, that they had broken…they penalty is death…they have to accept this reality. Not to look for someone to Blame, like Noynoy Aquino is now doing…
The Chinese Tourists who were massacred at the Luneta Grandstand, by a lunatic policeman; were just coming here, to relax, and have a good time…they did not deserve to die…yet, up to now, Noynoy Aquino, never gave any factual statement, of what he did during the tragic hostage incident…he just disppeared, like Ping Lacson, in our parallel universe…
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jmp Reply:
April 4th, 2011 at 11:19 pm
Meron na na-tigok dahil sa Quirino Massacre — yung deputy ombudsman! Seriously, sounds more like political retribution rather than justice to me.
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Good point there. But you see, you should at least try to see their point of view, too. I wouldn’t even lie, when I saw the reaction of some Filipinos on national television, I reacted negatively as well. But then again, understanding their situation wouldn’t really harm you. We can’t just blame these people for being “immature” and creating “unnecessary racial slurs”, specially the love ones of the three drug mules convicted in China. Acceptance is the hardest part, specially when what (in this case, WHO) you lost is something(/someone) you can’t take back. Trust me, I’ve been there. People will always find someone or something to blame on, it’s because they’re too weak to see the facts. For them, denial is their way of coping up. Sure, it will take time.
About the hostage taking that happened last August 2010… God, people should really stop comparing these events like they’re correlated to each other. It’s not like our government chose to kill the innocent tourists, and neither did the Chinese Government kill the convicted drug mules because they’re Filipinos. And lastly, as for the people who posted “INSTIK BEHO” and the sort on groups or pages, I’m sure half of them are just internet trolls, they don’t really know anything about the situation. You should feel apathetic towards these trolls.
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Jay Reply:
April 7th, 2011 at 4:20 am
you should at least try to see their point of view, too.
We can’t just blame these people for being “immature” and creating “unnecessary racial slurs”, specially the love ones of the three drug mules convicted in China
Okay, that is just plain out full retarded. You are telling US that its okay to spit out vile ignorance because we felt that way as a knee-jerk reaction to an institution that was serious? Everyone has to take their responsibility in all this. Those executed certainly knew the risks of whatever shady business they were getting into, more so the recruiter who set up said shady business. The Chinese government were responsible enough to enforce their laws. And you defend the dumb pinoys in general for claiming ignorance? This is how bad stereotypes are realized. So its quite okay when Pinoys are spouting out their racism but totally against when other nations do it to Pinoys? Nice double standard.
Speaking more about responsibility: It’s not like our government chose to kill the innocent tourists, and neither did the Chinese Government kill the convicted drug mules because they’re Filipinos
The Chinese government did good on their word by the way. There are many FIlipinos caught due to the ineptitude of the Pinoy government, who has not taken responsibility in their part of fixing up the recruitment mess and Pinoy OFWs who should know what they are getting into. The Pinoy government did NOT DO GOOD ON THEIR WORD in handling the bus massacre and getting innocent tourists killed. Of course they chose to get those tourists killed! If they chose to save them, they would go about efficient means and handle the situation like REAL PROFESSIONALS! There had 8 frikin hours and no progress, only failure and death. You defend that and you are only reinforcing the ineptitude of the people towards their government.
Keep your emo in check for once and maybe you learn a thing or two about reality.
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Interrigorate Singson of his drug supplier. You catch Singson drug supplier you catch the drug supplier that sent 3 Filipinos to their death. IDIOT COIN-OPERATED DUMB STUPID PERYODISTAS NEVER ASKED THIS QUESTION. They are only goot in political analysis.
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Why no one interrogating Singson his source of drugs? WHY? Will someone pose this one question to idiot dumb stupid coin-operated peryodistas?
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