Child Hostages Freed
First and important: Gorilla's Guides
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I was quite intrigued by this story. A man chartered a bus for a school field trip, but ends up telling the driver to take them to City Hall, where he announces that he has weapons and is holding the bus full of children and two teachers hostage.
His reason for doing so was to draw attention to the broken promises of government officials to help impoverished children.
In the articles I read about the situation, it seemed quite clear that the man had no intention of harming the children at all, and that he accepted the inevitable incarceration he would face for his actions.
I have to mull this over a bit more.
Update: The children were checked out and seem "unfazed" - apparently plenty of provisions were brought (food, drinks, toilet facilities), and many people, including parents of children on the bus have mixed emotions...
On to the next...
I was quite intrigued by this story. A man chartered a bus for a school field trip, but ends up telling the driver to take them to City Hall, where he announces that he has weapons and is holding the bus full of children and two teachers hostage.
His reason for doing so was to draw attention to the broken promises of government officials to help impoverished children.
In the articles I read about the situation, it seemed quite clear that the man had no intention of harming the children at all, and that he accepted the inevitable incarceration he would face for his actions.
I have to mull this over a bit more.
Update: The children were checked out and seem "unfazed" - apparently plenty of provisions were brought (food, drinks, toilet facilities), and many people, including parents of children on the bus have mixed emotions...
by MG at 7:08 AM
7 Comments:
His cause may be noble, but putting fear and concern into other people is not right whatever the cause. Perhaps doing something that only places his life in danger would have been better.
Indeed. This could have so easily turned bloody. One overzelous "rescuer" or nervous cop is all it takes. Remember those officers in NY (?) who went all gun-happy on a car that bumped theirs? Yeah. Imagine that, but with chunks of child flesh wafting wetly through the air.
I don't care if the kiddies had a jolly good time with snacks and singalongs and prizes. This. Was. Wrong.
His stunt didn't underscore or support his point. It just scared people. I'm glad he's taking responsibilty for his actions though. That would have made the parents feel all better as they buried their children.
And frankly Moxie, as a parent I'm a bit stunned you have to mull this over.
Here endeth the sermon. Sorry if I'm cranky over this. I have my reasons.
I have to say like Moxie I would have to think this over too. As a mother I would be screaming bloody murder and demand his head on a platter. However here we have a person who's business it was to take care of children and I suspect his motives for that weren't finical.
What makes me wonder is what are the injustices he was doing this to protest. He was obviously deeply committed to sacrifice his freedom for the betterment of children.
While his actions were deplorable his motives may have been noble and that is my definition of a dilemma. I hope that the news services will at least look into what the circumstances were that drove him to this extreme action. Yes I know asking the mainstream media to do real reporting is a total pipedream.
P.S. Moxie you rock and keep up the great work :)
Jenn
Mark and Atrocious, therein lies the reasoning for my mulling... yes, it was clearly wrong of him to act that way, yes, every parent must have been stricken with the deepest of fears, yes, he deserves to be punished for his actions. I certainly do not condone such behavior, but for some reason I just find this a perplexing and peculiar case. It seemed obvious almost from the start that this man was not holding these children hostage in order to secure the release of terrorists in custody, nor was he holding them for ransom money.
His goal was to put the spotlight on the children, and he achieved his goal - got worldwide attention - , and is ready to accept whatever consequences come with it.
What would I say if my child was on that bus? By god I'd be immobilized with fear, I'm sure. Anything could happen. But it makes me wonder just how bad it is there that this man is willing to spend at least a dozen years behind bars to bring awareness of it all.
Moxie, I can't read Gorilla Guides. My monitor is too small?
nunya, I know they just recently changed their blog format. Try viewing from a different computer if possible and see if that helps?
Yes, I heard about this too and saw a clip on CNN about it. That's pretty f***ing bad when you have to hold kids hostage to get educational funding.
Even more sad was when they showed the slum in Manila where these kids live, complete with open sewers running through the streets. If anyone wants a heartbreaking indictment of capitalism they need look no further than that slum in Manila. But on the upside, places like that may well be where real change starts. Those kids thankfully won't be kids forever; one day they'll grow up and (hopefully) become conscious, and when they do they will rip the Filipino bourgeoisie limb from limb.
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