Bang Lu Min Testimony - Is it True or a Hoax?

I recently received an email from a colleague with a screenshot of a Facebook page. The page shows a testimony from a certain Bang Lu Min regarding the ordeal the hostages took during the hostage crisis situation that happened on Monday, August 23. This Facebook page or message has been circulating the internet since Wednesday and almost generating some buzz because of the authenticity and validity of the testimony.

Here's a copy of the attachment I received:

Based on the page, it was posted on August 24, at 2:28 PM, a day after the hostage taking drama that claimed 8 tourist dead and the hostage taker Rolando Mendoza.

It talks about the dreadful experience of the tourists inside the bus during the incident as detailed by Bang Lu Min, from the time the hostage taker's brother was arrested to the point of the police assault that lead to the death of Mendoza.

In my opinion, there are some basis for this post to be untrue. First, this is a too fast for a survivor of a tragic incident to be able to write their ordeal in a social networking site such as Facebook. Second, the hostages where Chinese and she was able to write in fluent English is somehow unbelievable. The last thing that made this post untrue is that there was no Bang Lu Min in the list of the tourist who survived the incident.

Maybe it was posted by someone in behalf of the survivor or maybe it was just made by a person with creative mind to be able to describe the tragedy happening on a first person perspective. Whether it was fact or fiction, we should be careful in telling what we feel regarding what happened. It should not be talked about carelessly and should not be a subject of jokes like what many people do. This is a serious matter that the image of Philippines is tainted and it will take a long time before we will be able to forget it.

The hostage taking that happened on Monday is a tragedy that we should learn from. It is a lesson for the police to be prepared in this kind of situation and for our politicians to stop pointing fingers and talking nonsense for the sake of them saying something.

Wide Tube 2.0: Tekken

I recently watched Tekken to check if it was a good movie. I was not really a fan of the game but I always like to see movies that were adapted from games like this one.

Tekken was based on a fighting qarcade game series developed by Namco which has already spawned more than five sequels in PlayStation and arcade platforms.

Set in a futuristic world where countries are ran by corporation because government can no longer function after the World Wars. In order to control the growing chaos and mayhem, the corporations decided to hold Iron Fist Tournament until one remains and the ultimate winner earns lifetime of fame and riches.

The movie begins with Jin (Jon Foo) witnessing his mother die in an attack made by security forces of the Tekken Corporation. He then decided to join the tournament, planning to kill the CEO of Tekken Corporation, Heihachi Mishima (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa), holding the latter responsible for his mother's death.

In the tournament he befriends Steve Fox, a former fighter himself during the early years of the tournament, and Christie Monteiro (Kelly Overton), a pretty but also a lethal fighter in the tournament.

During the tournament, Kazuya Mishima discovers that Jin was his son and concludes that Jin will be in his way in getting hold of Tekken Corporation from his father. Kazuya then planned in killing Jin outside and inside the tournament. But Jin was able to survive the attempts. The story ends with Jin winning the tournament and somehow shows that he inherited the Tekken Corporation since Heihachi was apparently summarily executed by the Jackhammers as ordered by Kazuya. A little spoiler though, Heihachi was shown at the end of credits to take control of the Jack and prevented it from executing him, thus making the movie open for a sequel.

The movie somehow reminds me of the gladiators battle each other to the death for the satisfaction of the of the Roman Republic crowd and the Roman Empire officials.

The casts were not known actors and actresses due to the fact that casting preference was for those with familiarity with the fighting techniques and martial arts of the game characters.

My rate for this movie is 6 out of 10 since the movie is somehow poorly developed because it the story concentrated on Jin, wherein other characters made only a small appearance like Marshall Law. They might have checked on characters from the original game since Jin was just only introduced on Tekken 3. The Williams sisters (Anna and Nina) were included as assassins but also to provide scenes to entice male movie watchers.

Priscilla Meirelles is FHM Philippines August 2010 Cover

FHM Phillipines goes three dimensional on their August 2010 issue with Priscilla Meirelles on the cover. The Brazilian beauty queen who won the title for Miss Earth 2004 was ranked number 94 in the recently held FHM Philippines Top 100 Sexiest Woman in the World. Thanks to John for allowing her to have her first cover shoot with FHM Philippines and hope this will not be the last.

This month's issue tackles article about how to make a living inside the internet world. Tips on how to get an online job and how much people earn in the virtual world.

The issue also includes a 3D glass so that you can enjoy drooling at the 3D pictures of Angel Locsin (#1), Christine Reyes (#3), Katrina Halili (#7), Angelica Panganiban (#6), Iwa Moto (#5), Bangs Garcia (#9), Jackie Rice (#11) and the Premiere Vixens in their 3-dimensional Wetness section. FHM Philippines August 2010 is available in all bookstores and magazine stands.