In a personal chronicle of the 11-hour hostage crisis in Manila on August 23, one of the survivors recounted how the hostages planned to attack the hostage-taker, Rolando Mendoza. “Our biggest mistake was to overestimate the ability of the local police force,” wrote Lee Ying-chuen, one of the Hong Kong tourists who was held hostage, in a Chinese newspaper. Mendoza, a dismissed senior police inspector, hijacked a tourist bus in front of the Quirino Grandstand in Manila and held hostage 21 Hong Kong tourists and four Filipinos. After an 11-hour standoff, Mendoza was killed along with eight Hong Kong tourists last Monday. Communicating in hushed tones Although they were forced to sit far from one another, Lee said the hostages managed to communicate in hushed tones, according to a report in The South China Morning Post (SCMP), based on an essay Lee wrote for the Chinese-language Ming Pao newspaper. Lee herself thought about kicking the gunman out of the bus when he was standing near the door. She was seated at the back of the bus and found it difficult to relay the message to those sitting at the front. “A few times, the people who sat at the back discussed if we should fight the gunman. We observed where his weapon was, and when would be the best time to act ... Mr. Leung (Ken Leung Kam-wing) told his daughters that they should also help in snatching the gun. But in the end, we hesitated,” she wrote. Leung and his two daughters were killed, along with five other hostages on the bus. “What made us hesitate? It was because we were scared, and that we believed the gunman did not intend to kill us,” she wrote. “Before the gunman started shooting at night, he had never pointed his gun towards any of us. He had never threatened us ... he reiterated that he would not hurt us. All this made us feel more at ease,” recounted Lee, who hid under her seat when the shooting started. “It was dark inside the bus. The only light I saw was the firing from the gunman, whenever he discovered that there were people still alive,” wrote Lee, who said she could still smell blood days after being rescued. Teen hostage hid under bus seat Fellow survivor Tracey Wong told Hong Kong reporters she hid under a seat in the bus when Mendoza started firing at the hostages. “I want to find daddy and mommy quickly and see if they're OK,” the 15-year-old said. However, Hong Kong's radio RTHK reported that both her of parents were among those killed, identifying her father as 51-year-old Wong Tze-lam. Another survivor, 53 year-old Amy Ng, lost her daughters – Doris, 21, and Jessie, 14 – and her husband Ken Leung, whom she said confronted the gunman. Ng told GMA News that the only thing that is giving her the strength to go on is her only son Jason, who underwent surgery at the Manila Doctors' Hospital because of a skull fracture. Ng and her son are now in Hong Kong. “I was thinking, I want to die with my husband but I also think of my kids, that's why I think if I die, and my husband dies, no one takes care of them...” Ng said, barely able to speak through her sobs. Immense anger, sorrow, and guilt “These few days I have thought about this incident many times, with immense anger, sorrow and guilt ... how come after such a long wait, we were still silently anticipating the rescue that looked like it would never come? Why did we hand our lives over to that useless government?” wrote Lee. “I understand Hongkongers' rage over the inability of the Filipino government and police - I experienced it. But what does this have to do with the common people?” asked Lee. In its editorial on Wednesday, the SCMP had expressed similar sentiments, saying Filipinos are the “wrong targets” of the collective anger. In the same editorial, it described the police force that handled Monday's hostage situation as “incompetent.” “The actions of a unit of police commandos were not (the Filipinos') doing. Tarring them with the same brush of incompetence isn't right,” the editorial read, adding that venting anger toward Filipinos “smacks of racism.” A day after the hostage-taking, the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) voiced concern over the tendency of some people to blow the incident out of proportion in expressing their anger. “We have already been informed via an SMS (short messaging system) today of an incident in which a man in Kowloon Tong was heard to have shouted: ‘We employ them (Filipinos) in our homes and they murder us in their homes.' This tragedy should not become a conflict of nationalities and it must not, at any point, be seen as such,” it said in its website Tuesday night. Filipinos also grieving Presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said Filipinos in Hong Kong should not be blamed for the deadly hostage-taking because they are also “in grief” over the incident. “We recognize the anger and agony of the Hong Kong people, but we would ask the people of Hong Kong not to take it out on Filipinos there,” he told reporters in a briefing in Malacanang on Wednesday. Upon returning to Hong Kong, Lee became aware of some racist comments against Filipino maids, adding that some people even referred to the Philippines as the “land of slaves.” She recalled how angry she became in the hospital upon hearing what President Benigno Aquino said about the media and the police's reaction to the tragedy. “When I heard that the police were shifting the blame from their own inability to the media, and requested a block on media reports in cases of emergency, I was so angry that I shouted loudly in the ward.” She said she expressed her anger to Filipino officials who came to visit her, including the president's sister, Kris Aquino. She said to give justice to the victims, the focus should be on the Philippine government and police.
