The Aquino administration on Tuesday called on the media to practice restraint in covering crisis situations to prevent a repeat of the Aug. 23 bus hijack tragedy that left eight Hong Kong tourists dead and two others seriously wounded. At the same time, Malacanang insisted that President Benigno Aquino III should not be blamed for the botched police operation, saying that there was no failure of leadership during the more than 11-hour hostage standoff. Authorities earlier admitted to making a number of blunders in handling the crisis, which strained diplomatic ties with Hong Kong and badly affected the Philippines' tourism industry. Ricky Carandang, head of Aquino's Communications and Operations Office, said he would meet with the heads of major television and radio networks to discuss their coverage of the hostage crisis. He made it clear, however, that Malacanang was not trying to impose restrictions on media.”We want to try to reach a common ground, how we're all going to behave if this thing happens again,” he said. Although there is a proposal to bar media from making live broadcast of a hostage-taking incident in the future, Carandang said Aquino does not support this. “The idea of (imposing) news blackouts is not something we are contemplating,” he said. Nevertheless, he said some incidents would require a news blackout, and this is where he would like to come to an agreement with the media. Security experts earlier noted that the live broadcasts of the standoff had allowed the hostage-taker, dismissed Police Senior Inspector Rolando Mendoza, to monitor movements of the law enforcers surrounding the bus he hijacked through a television set inside the bus. One radio station also broadcast a lengthy live interview with Mendoza during the hostage-taking incident which only ended when police commandos assaulted the bus and fatally shot Mendoza. The experts said the exclusive radio interview prevented negotiators from talking to Mendoza, adding that the negotiators could have succeeded in defusing the crisis if not for the interference of the radio network. For his part, Presidential Communications Group Secretary Herminio Coloma said Malacanang is not really worried on the backlash of the crisis on Aquino's popularity. He said such a dip in popularity is to be expected considering the worldwide repercussion of the crisis. But he insisted that Aquino acted properly in handling the incident. “Hindsight is the clearest of all visions…In our opinion, there is no failure of leadership,” he said in a television interview. Aquino has drawn massive criticism, particularly from Hong Kong citizens, allegedly for failing to show leadership at the time of the crisis. But the President's key aides rejected this criticism, saying Aquino silently mobilized various Cabinet members at the height of the crisis. They said Malacanang officials hushed up their moves to prevent the hostage-taker from “upping the ante” in the negotiations. Social Welfare Secretary Corazon “Dinky” Soliman said at that time Aquino was at his command post at the Emerald Restaurant, which is near the Quirino Grandstand where the standoff happened. She said Aquino was monitoring the situation with Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim and Department of the Interior and Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo. But a number of political analysts said Aquino should have taken a more direct role in the crisis since Filipinos expect their leaders to step up and take charge during times of emergency. “During the more than 11 hours when the crisis was raging, where was our President? He should have assigned an emissary who could have ordered law enforcers to do what the President wanted,” Gladstone Cuarteros, a political analyst, said in a television interview. Dr. Prospero de Vera, another political analyst, said as a result of the president's indecisive act, he expects Aquino's approval rating “to go down from between 10 percent to 15 percent.”
