Philippine Tourism's Darkest Hour

     Yesterday was a rather important day albeit a sad one. It was the first year anniversary of the Manila siege at the Quirino Grandstand wherein which a busload of tourists from Hong Kong were taken hostage by an irate ex-cop. When all the brouhaha had subsided only eight of the entire busload of tourists had remained alive.

     Well, it has been a year and it seems the dark cloud of the hostage-taking drama has not dissipated. Those family members that have been left behind have banded together to ask for remuneration from the government and to demand an apology from President P-Noy himself to assuage their anger and sorrow for their loved ones who perished in the siege.

     Separately, a rag-tag group of protesters had gathered in the Philippine embassy in Hong Kong to rally for their cause. They claim to be doing the protests all in the name of Justice. From our end, representatives of the president have been indignant in releasing an apology stating matter-of-factly that the incident was an isolated case and that the Philippine government had exhausted all means to stop the bungled siege and at the same time had imposed strict guidelines and measures to make sure the incident does not ever happen again.

     In the heels of Secretary Lim's resignation and the vacuum left at the Department of  Tourism, we're still wondering what will happen next as our tourism efforts are negatively affected by these events. Now that we are starting to attract a bigger chunk of the European and even regional market, we just can not sit idly by and do nothing. 

     I feel for the  survivors and family members that have been left behind to recount the horrible ordeal their loved ones experienced. However, their trip to Manila to recount the massacre of happy tourists remain unresolved. No apology was issued. No money was released. No criminals nor public officials were convicted. I don't think the bad experience is just going to go away if we remain unaffected at all.

     We have to man up and give some semblance of responsibility for these hapless victims or the incident will haunt Philippine tourism for years to come. At least give the tourists some assurance that someone in government is watching their backs.  Only then can our guests feel safe in our city's streets...