Missing The Train

This may come as some surprise to many of you but it’s the honest truth… I was not going to write anything remotely connected to the Manila Bus Hostage crisis and the subsequent fiasco also known as the Hostage Rescue. Watching the Incident Investigation and Review Committee (IIRC) hearings a few weeks ago literally wore me out. I actually thought, after viewing the tragic events unfold live on TV during the crisis, that it couldn’t be any worse. I was wrong. The IIRC hearings uncovered a complete lack of operational understanding, crisis management, tactics, basic police work and common sense. From the very start, when the Vice President of the tour company called the Philippine National Police to report the hostage situation, the dominoes, representing one bad decision after another, began to fall. I could spend pages of this blog just reviewing how the decisions of those involved started an unavoidable chain reaction leading to the deaths of seven hostages but let’s leave that for another post.

What I would like to discuss is training and team work. High School football (American Football not Soccer) teams practice five to six times per week. In fact, prior to the start of the school year, there’s even Spring Training which is the lead up to regular football practice. During Spring Training (held Monday through Friday from morning to evening) the players run as a team, lift weights as a team, go through the “plays” as a team, run some more as a team work on techniques as a team and run some more as a team. All of this works to condition their bodies in preparation for the football season and, of course, it builds Team Work. Once the school year begins, they practice Monday through Friday after school and “double-sessions” on Saturdays. Practice, practice, practice! Train, train train!

Recently, the Philippine National Police National Capital Regions SWAT Teams took part in skills & fitness tests (article in the PhilippineStar). Since the tragic end to the bus hostage crisis, every police department inside Metro Manila, excluding the Western Police District, showcased their perspective SWAT Teams in an effort to prove incompetence is not all encompassing so… One would think the results of the test would show the same level of skill and performance as seen during any of these SWAT Demonstrations. Here are the actual results…

Out of the 418 active SWAT members in Metro Manila, 42 (FORTY-TWO) passed the Skills and Physical Fitness Tests of the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO). That’s just Metro Manila where they have five Police Districts (Quezon City, Northern, Eastern, Western and Northern) and in each district are Police Stations and Sub-Stations. So, to make sure we all understand the situation, Metro Manila now has 42 (FORTY-TWO) active SWAT members. It gets worse…

Out of the 418 so-called SWAT members, a mere 56 (FIFTY-SIX) actually took the physical fitness test. 362 so-called SWAT members were unable to or were excused from taking this portion of the testing due to, get this, “medical problems and old age”. Now, common sense dictates that if you are too old, too sick, too fat or all of the above, your status as a SWAT Operator should come under some sort of scrutiny.

Oh but it gets worse… “At least 324 or 77.5 percent of those tested lacked fundamental SWAT skills while 93 others failed to complete and pass the individual skills tests” according to Metro Manila Police Chief Leocadio Santiago. This is simply and completely unacceptable by all logical reason.

However, there are certain personalities in Law Enforcement (in the Philippines) and Government who have quickly pointed out the failures are not theirs but that of the foreign agencies who have trained the members of SWAT in the past. These officials, so quick to point the finger elsewhere, contend that since Philippine SWAT Team Members (some of them) received training from LAPD SWAT, FBI, DEA etc, then said training should have shown through during the botched hostage rescue attempt ergo, SWAT performance was (is) below standards because the training they received from “the foreigners” was below standard. Makes perfect sense until you realize that foreign training of this kind takes place every few years at best. You know what? I’ll come back to this in a moment. Bear with me…

As I pointed out earlier, Football (as with any team sport) takes practice and team work. No one player on the field can do it alone. In my high school days we had a running back named Steve. This guy was awesome! Natural speed and ability that got him all the way into the Pros! But here’s the thing. Steve, with all his talent and skill, could not win any game by himself. It takes an entire team that has practiced together for months on end, day in and day out, to bring home the win. Now, Steve may have attended Football Camp during the summer months and benefited from professional players and coaches to increase his skill but, that being said, it is certain that those skills would be passed on to his team mates back at school.

So, here we are… The fact is members of the Philippine SWAT Teams may go abroad (or even here) to receive training from any number of Law Enforcement Agencies who specialize in Weapons & Tactics each year. If they don’t bring that home and practice those skills every day, the skills are lost. A perfect example is the testimony of three SWAT operators who took part in the bus hostage rescue. Other than the day of the event when, that afternoon, they performed “dry-runs” on a bus, the last time any of them had trained (either as a team or simply at the firing range) was one year ago! Even if the entire Manila Police District SWAT Team attended a four week training course from the US Federal Bureau of Investigations Hostage Rescue Team earlier in the year, the skill is lost without RECURRENT training. They might as well sit back and prey for a peaceful outcome because to send them into the game would be a huge mistake, which it was.

Now we find out the awful truth that Metro Manila only has 42 qualified members of their Special Weapons and Tactics Teams to cover 17 (SEVENTEEN) separate cities therein due to old age, poor health, poor physical shape and, yes, lack of training.

Part Two of this piece coming soon… Stay tuned.