Management failure

I was in Singapore over the weekend and it was there where I learned about the Resorts World tragedy from my Facebook news feed. My initial reaction was to wonder how the lone gunman managed to sneak in a baby Armalite and the gasoline into the casino. Entering Resorts World is like entering an airport terminal or so I thought.

I thought that maybe the gunman was a hotel guest and he hid the stuff in his luggage. The pieces of luggage guests bring in are not screened, but brought directly to their hotel rooms. Indeed this is probably one loophole the management of local hotels may want to look into. In this era of heightened terrorism, it may be necessary to screen luggage the way they do so in airports.

The sight of airport x-ray machines at the lobbies of hotels may not look too inviting, but will definitely be reassuring to guests. Aside from terrorists we need to worry about demented people like that dismissed DOF employee with big gambling debts.

Of course, the fact that the gunman with his rifle in sight managed to pass through a regular entrance to Resorts World, manned by a single unarmed female guard, isn’t reassuring. Right there, the management of Resorts World seems guilty of inadequate security. Calling their security lax is even giving Resorts World management too much credit.

Then again, poor governance is not just a government monopoly. The puede na yan Pinoy mentality is the killer quality that makes us live dangerous lives. Mall security is a joke. What can we really expect from poorly paid and poorly trained blue guards?

When I was on the board of our homeowners association many decades ago, I protested the inclination of the board to “save” money on security. I pointed out that we have to make sure our blue guards are properly paid because security agencies pay them a lot less than we are paying the agencies.

But I was told that was just the way it is. And since the president of the homeowners association was a retired colonel, I merely sounded like a bleeding heart liberal in a tough real world. I am sure the situation of the blue guards today remains the same.

In hindsight, a rather vulnerable business like a casino should have a better quality of security guards and system to protect its guests.  Patrons lose big money in the casino that powers the profitability of the business. It makes sense to have better trained security officers who should be as tough as the police SAF.

The blue guards of casinos, banks and even malls should also be screened to have the brains to react in a way that will save lives. They should have a protocol on how to respond when confronted with a variety of threats.

CCTV cameras are useless unless manned by alert security personnel. Knowing how a tragedy unfolded is helpful, but not as great as stopping it as it begins to unfold.

The Resorts World affair was the talk of the town in Singapore. It was a weekend and many Filipino workers were out in the streets on their day off. Almost every conversation I could overhear was about what happened in Resorts World. Singaporeans were also interested to know how such a thing could happen.

It didn’t help that statements from the Speaker of the House seemed to support the terrorist angle. ISIS claiming the incident as its own didn’t help. Of course that’s scary and I am sure that caused a lot of cancellations in tourist visits to the country.

The only calm and professional response came from the PNP NCR chief, Gen. Oscar Albayalde. He minimized the terrorist threat and initially offered the possibility that it was a desperately addicted gambler who probably had a bone to pick with Resorts World casino management.

What happened next was excellent police work. This was how detectives worked during my time as a police reporter. They backtrack and trace the roots of the event. After reviewing the CCTV footage, they talked to the taxi driver who brought the gunman and managed to trace the gunman to his neighborhood, and finally his house and his family.

Police established that contrary to the claims of ISIS, it was not a terror act and the gunman was not a jihadist of ISIS.  The gunman was a Filipino, dismissed by the DOF and the Ombudsman for unexplained wealth, deeply in debt and had serious family trouble because of his gambling addiction.

That was a relief. If it had been what ISIS and Speaker Alvarez claimed, it may be used as an excuse to extend martial law nationwide. Indeed, expanding martial law might have been the intention of Alvarez.

Lee Kuan Yew didn’t like casinos and it took a long while for him to agree but with a lot of buts. They have rather strict rules in Singapore for casinos. Singapore’s basic principle is to maximize economic profits and minimize social costs. That’s why the two casino operators, Resorts World Singapore being one of the two, have to adhere to tough rules or face significant fines or presumably, closure.

Singapore is serious in protecting its citizens from the ill effects of problem gambling. They have a National Council on Problem Gambling. It runs programs that allow families of problem gamblers to request they be banned from casinos.

We had similar bans on locals in the past, but our rules have been relaxed. Even police, military and government officials manage to enter casinos despite rules.

We are a soft state, so different from Singapore where they are serious about their rules. Singapore’s obsession with protecting society in general is admirable and we can only dream and aspire that one day we, too, will be like them.

Our being a soft state means rules are easily bent. Regulation can be bought. If it is true that the sprinkler system at Resorts World didn’t work, that wouldn’t be surprising at all.

Then again too, with so many of its employees dead through smoke inhalation, the casino operator appears to have not adequately trained them how to respond to such an emergency. I am sure an establishment that attracts crowds like Resorts World is required to conduct fire drills, earthquake drills and other emergency drills.  Apparently, Resorts World didn’t take this seriously.

Good governance is what we need both in the government and private sectors. Given the number of natural and man-made calamities we constantly face, any bending of the rules for whatever reasons endanger the quality of our lives, if not our lives.

The other thing with Singapore is that those who violate the law are punished. The police investigation on what happened at Resorts World Manila will hopefully tell us what went wrong on all levels. Those who fell short, even if it is a rich powerful property conglomerate, ought to suffer penalties that hurt, not just token.

At the very least, top management must be fired for the lapse during their watch. We need a fresh start for Resorts World Manila and a fresh approach. Present management simply failed, period… no more excuses.

It should bother us that Resorts World in Singapore seems able to play it by the book. Resorts World Manila should be able to do that as well.

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco