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.
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ReplyDeleteYes it's fabricated. The official manifest of victims can be found in ...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/201008/24/P201008240172.htm
hey man. you know there are chinese-canadian in that bus right? maybe she is one of them. but if this is a hoax. it will be just pure bullcrap man.
ReplyDeleteyou do know that there are chinese canadians if the bus right?
ReplyDeleteand that they change their names when they come in other country.
this might be her chinesse name but not her name that she changed into.
but if this is hoax. its gonna be just a big disappointment.