by Jovie Cabais | Aug 29, 2010 | Tech Updates
On a delayed trip on the Oceanjet from Cebu to Tagbilaran on August 25, 2010, the passengers were startled by a lady foreign tourist who fell on the floor and hit her head quite hard on a metal object. Luckily, there was a doctor, a nurse and several kind hearted citizens who stood up and helped her recover from a fainting spell. But the crew seemed unable to respond properly to the emergency because they could not produce an emergency kit, saying they only had Biogesic on board. There wasn’t even a stretcher. Fortunately the doctor was bringing along her stethoscope and she was able to check her vital signs. Her male companion, through the little English he knew, was able to communicate with the volunteers and provided the doctor with some medical history. A little later, an improvised bed was finally made with blankets and towels from the passengers. A crew member removed padding from a chair and this was used as a pillow. Amidst the chaos, the other volunteers tried to contact the hospitals to request for an ambulance so the patient could be immediately checked because her head was probably injured by the impact. Their attempts were unsuccessful. As the boat neared the pier, the captain was able to arrange for the port police to use their vehicle as an ambulance. The event underscored the need for a centralized emergency response unit in Bohol that could receive calls and evaluate for authenticity of the emergency and then organize the teams that should respond. This would be not only be important for Boholanos, but also to tourists...
by Jovie Cabais | Aug 29, 2010 | Tech Updates
The grim outcome of last week’s hostage drama was made worse with embarrassing execution of maneuvers by the SWAT team that seem to put a doubt on the quality of training the police recruits get. Because of the detailed and live coverage of the situation, the suspect probably had a very good source of information on the situation outside the bus because it had a TV set — while the police probably didn’t have a clue on what was going on inside. The SWAT team approached the bus and the event was broadcast live by the various TV stations. The suspect only had to look at the TV set to know the positions of the assault teams. His brother joined in the drama and was arrested by the police. Because he resisted arrest, he got a fair amount of “rough handling”, again on live telecast much to the anger of the suspect and after this, the situation became out of control. In future situations like this, should media exercise prudence and choose not to broadcast live events like the arrest and rough handling of the suspect’s brother? Should they not broadcast live the positions taken by the police and assault teams? At the end of the day, the police would still be responsible for the outcome of crisis situations and perhaps on their end, they should have put control on how much the media and the suspect can see. Or at least display activity to divert the suspect and media from the real action that is about to happen. Unfortunately for the PNP and the Philippines in general, videos...
