CRISIS MANAGEMENT AND
SYSTEM THE INCIDENT
COMMAND SYSTEM
Preliminaries
The word Crisis is any event that is going (or is expected) to lead to an unstable and dangerous situation
affecting an individual, group, community, or whole society. Crisis are deemed to be negative changes in
the security, economic, political, societal, or environmental affairs, especially when they occur abruptly,
with little or no warning. More loosely, it is a term meaning “a testing time” or an “emergency event”
In this premise, crisis is a wide variety of concern where collective efforts must be bundled in, comprising
all the vital factors to consider in order to cope with its negative consequence. Human induced crisis like
hostage taking, kidnaping, bombing, public demons in the country. Thus, responders and managers on
the ground are challenged by how to end with much success on the negotiation and operational process.
As a case in point, we shall describe the Manila hostage crisis, officially known as the Rizal Park hostage-
taking incident, which took place when a disgruntled former PNP member hijacked a tourist bus in Rizal
Park, Manila, Philippines on August 23, 2010. The bus carried 25 people: 20 tourists, a tour guide from
Hong Kong, and four local Filipinos. The hostage taker claimed that he had been unfairly dismissed from
his job and demanded a fair hearing to defend himself.
Negotiations (which were broadcast live on television and the internet) broke down dramatically about
ten hours into the stand-off, when the police arrested the hostage taker’s brother and thus incited him to
open fire. Following a 90-minute gun battle, the hostage taker and eight of the hostages were killed and
several others injured and have been widely criticized by pundits as “bungled” and “incompetent.”
BASIC CONCEPTS
Crisis is a period of disorganization, period of upset during which people attempts at arriving
at solution of problems. It is a crucial or decisive point in situation; a turning point; an
unstable condition, as in political , social or economic . It state provokes when a person faces
obstacles or hazard to an important life goal.
The term “Crisis” is derived from the Greek
word “krisis” which means to separate;
The term “emergency” is derived
from that the Latin word
“emergencia” which means
dipping/plugging.
TYPES OF CRISIS
•MAN MADE CRISIS
•NATURAL CRISIS
•INDIVIDUAL CRISIS
1.Physical Crisis – those that are related to health problems or bodily
sickness/sufferings.
2. Economics Crisis – the deprivation of the basic necessities of life like food and
material things.
3. Emotional Crisis – when an individual is affected by negative feelings like
emotional disturbance, fear, etc.
4. Social Crisis – the experiencing lack interest, confidence and social skills to relate
meaningful, harmonious relationship with others.
5. Moral Crisis – the person has an irrational or distorted concept of what is wright
and wrong.
6. Psychosexual Crisis – failure of the person to assume one’s sex role and identity
as a man or woman.
THE CONCEPT OF THE CRISIS MANAGEMENT
•CrisisManagement – is the proper utilization of all
available resources and the formulation of policies and
procedures to effectively deal with progressive sequence of
events (crisis) and sudden or unforeseen state (emergency).
THE CRISIS MANAGEMENT DOCTRINE
•The crisis may start as basically police or special unit
matter but could develop in proportion and dimension
requiring further military operations.
PHASES OF CRISIS MANAGEMENT
A. PRO-ACTIVE PHASE – is the stage of advance
planning, organization and coordination and control in
response to an anticipated future crisis occurrence.
1. PREDICTION – The first stage of anticipating future
crisis occurrences through the Ff.
• UPDATE- INTELLIGENCE –INVOLVES THE
COLLECTION OF INFORMATION FROM VARIETY OF
SOURCES AS BASIS OF ACTIONS AND PLAN; THOSE
THAT ARE RELATED TO CRISIS MANAGEMENT
CONTINGENCY PLANNING.
•EVENTS – ARE THOSE INCIDENTS THAT ARE
ALREADY PASSED WHICH CAN FACILITATE ANALYSIS
NECESSARY FOR IDENTIFICATION OF PROBABLE
THREAT GROUPS, TARGETS AND NECESSARY FOR
ADVANCE PLANNING.
• Threat Analysis of Threat Groups
a. Political Terrorist- ideologically inspire individuals who grouped together for a common purpose usually for
change of government or political power. Ex. CPP/ NPA, SPT’s, etc.
b. Criminals – these are people who commit terrorist acts for personal rather than ideological gains. Some of the
terrorist acts such as kidnapping are well planned, other are not planned, but happens as a result of the fast
response time by LEAs to an ongoing crime. For instance, a number of bank robberies have evolved into unplanned
hostage situation when policemen arrive In response to an alarm robbery is in progress.
C. Mentally Deranged Individuals – people commit terroristic acts during a period of psychiatric disturbance. Type is
the most difficult terrorist to deal with. Many of them are impulsive and unpredictable.
2. PREVENTION – This pro active phases consider counter measures as part of
the total system of operation. Such counter measures involve the following:
•Operation Security – a counterintelligence measure where all aspects of
awareness and training must be considered to prevent threat groups from
learning the units plans methods of operation.
•Personal Security – it considers that all personnel are susceptible to
terrorist attract so the is a need for securing them.
•Physical Security – encompasses protection of info, material and people
including perimeter installation.
3. PREPARATION – This pro active phase involves organizing training and
equipment personnel of the organization.
•NCCM – National Committee on Crisis Management – Serves as the
umbrella organization for crisis management.
•The On-site Command Post (OSCP) – Establish with in the crisis incident
site. It is a post or unit within a probable target to be headed by an on-scene
commander (OSC) whose responsibility is to take charge of every happening of a
crisis incident scene.
Composition of the OSCP
TACTICAL UNIT – composed of regular military or police placed under the
operational command of the OSC.
1. Reaction Element – Special action unit which are specially organized,
equipped and deployed in the region to hold special operation in cases of crisis
incident.
2. Security Element – military or police personnel task to protect the area of
perimeter security to prevent occurrence of unnecessary incidents.
SUPPORT UNIT – it is a unit that provide the necessary administrative, operational
and logistics support of the OSC.
1.Intelligence Team – responsible for the collection and processing of all
information needed by the OSC.
2.Communication Team – responsible for insuring effective communication
between OSC and other units or sub-units.
3.Logistic Team – responsible for ensuring mess services, supplies (clothing,
equipment transportation) and other logistics services.
4.Medical Team – responsible for all medical supplies and services in cases of
crisis incident.
5.Fire fighting Team – responsible for all services related to extinguishing fires
intentionally set by perpetrators or during the result of operation.
6.Administrative Personnel – personnel assigned to OSC to keep written
records of events, in coming or outgoing communication.
7.Legal/ Investigation Team – services of investigation, preservation of
evidence, documents and legal advice to the OSC.
NEGOTIATION UNIT – It is headed by a chief negotiator
and composed of two or more members. Their primary
concern is to serve first life, prevent destruction and pave
the way for a peaceful resolution of crisis situations.
B. THE REACTIVE PHASE
When a crisis occurs despite the pro-active effort, the organization
concerned must prepare to perform the crisis management in
accordance with their plan.
PERFORMANCE – It is the action stage, the implementation of the crisis
management contingency plan.
1.The Initial Action – the stage taken by the Initial Action Unit, which
is composed of police and military personnel immediately organized into
team to initially respond to take incident and begin the containment
effort.
2.The Action Stage – The action stage starts as soon as the tactical,
support unit and the negotiation unit arrived and are deployed.
Negotiation – chief negotiator undertakes negotiation as soon as he
has been properly briefed and received appropriate instruction from the
OSC.
• Tactical Action – the tactical commander makes a complete
estimate of the crisis situation and plans his courses of action upon
arrival at the scene while negotiation is in progress.
3.The Post Action Stage – This stage begins as soon as the perpetrator
surrendered, captured or neutralized.
Classification of Terrorists
1. National Terrorist – A terrorist who operates and aspires to political power primarily within
a single nation.
2. Transnational Terrorist – This is a terrorist who operates across national borders, whose
actions and political aspirations may affect individual of more than one nationality.
3. International terrorists – A terrorists who is controlled by, and whose actions represent
the national interest of a sovereign state.
