On August 7, 2011, the History Channel premiered its 48-minute documentary on the bus hostage drama that happened in Manila a year ago on August 23, 2010.
For a full week after the premier, this same documentary would be replayed every day, sometimes three times a day, on cable TV. There was no noise about it, barely any media mileage other than what looked like press releases from the History Channel itself, where the documentary is sold along with the rest of the channel’s offerings for August.
For a nation that prides itself in having a powerful online and mainstream media, for a nation that can pick on a private citizen like Christopher Lao, and an artist like Mideo Cruz, we sure as hell know when to keep something under the radar. We sweep it under the proverbial rug, so to speak, just in case we might also be allowed to forget it. Speak no evil, see no evil, hear no evil, means we cannot be seen as evil?
In the case of last year’s bus hostage tragedy, we might not be evil, but we sure are incompetent and unforgivable, unapologetic and downright wrong. And in light of this documentary, we are just all complicit.
Were we all just too busy? Or were we all not ready for this anniversary?