Last August 23, Police Officer Mendoza hostaged Chinese tourists from Hong Kong around 9 am in Manila Grand Stand, Philippines. The hostage drama lasted for twelve hours and ended with the death of nine people: eight Chinese nationalities and the hostage taker, Mendoza.

Due to this incident, a conflict between China and Philippines started. China questioned the Philippines for their not properly skilled policemen and the failure of the rescue operation. It is said that the bullet proof that the police wore are already expired AND that the police are not trained. Both countries had an investigation in the hostage drama and had dissimilar results.

However, because of this incident, Filipino workers in Hong Kong were fired by their Chinese employers. Thousands of Filipinos in Hong Kong lost their jobs and are clueless what to do next. This incident definitely left behind a huge commotion in the whole world, considering the fact that the hostage drama was featured in CNN.

Many believed that the media is also one of the reasons why this incident failed to be isolated. Because of the media, the whole happening was shown in the world.

Filipinos were truly sorry for what happened, but it seems like not all Chinese can accept their sorry. Chinese families mourned for the death of their relatives who were supposed to be enjoying their vacation in the Philippines. They should be bringing back home the happy memories and experiences they had in the Philippines. But sadly, it is the other way around.

After those thousand of apologies offered but are refused, for me it is time to stop and accept that they do not want our (Filipinos) apology. It is rightful of us to give our apology to those people who lost their relatives but it does not mean that we have to lose our dignity and pride.

The hostage drama is normal and people acted like it happened for the first time in the whole world. The incident happened only once compared to other countries, who have worse situation than ours for they have terrorism in which a lot of nationalities were muredered and died.

China hates us for the hostage drama. But should we also hate them for spreading out Melamine that killed millions of people? We never did that. But why are they acting like this?

As I gone through further thoughts, I tried to create a new scenario. What if the hostage drama happened in USA and an american hostaged those Chinese? Of course, China would accept one apology from USA because USA's ranking is higher than them.
But if we try to get back to reality, Philippines is not as powerful as China that is why one apology from Filipinos is not enough.

I am not saying this because I hate China but because this is how I thought about the incident. We are not losing our dignity and pride just because of this.

We are sorry. That is enough.

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