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Lana Lam

Hours after the deaths in Manila, Hong Kong  issued a black travel alert for the Philippines, warning people to avoid all travel to the country.
The move - and Friday's decision  to take Russia off the amber travel alert list days ahead of a visit to Moscow by Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen - came after legislators suggested using the travel alert system to exert political pressure on Manila.
It also raised concerns among the travel industry over insurance and compensation.
The black alert means the government deems the Philippines more dangerous than flood-stricken, strife-torn Pakistan where 3,021 people died in terrorist attacks last year. 
Legislators last week urged the government to keep the black alert in place until the Philippine government delivered a report on its investigation into what led to the deaths of eight Hongkongers in last Monday's hostage-taking in Manila.
Secretary for Security Ambrose Lee Siu-kwong did not respond directly to their calls, made on Thursday at a special meeting of the Legislative Council's security panel. Lee said: 'There may be risk in travelling to the Philippines now.'
This is only the second time the black alert has been imposed on any country since the warning system was launched last year. Thailand received the first black alert in April this year due to political unrest in Bangkok. The government's colour-coded outbound travel alert (OTA) system was launched in October following political violence in Thailand in late 2008.  
The system covers 60 countries the government deems Hongkongers visit most. The lowest-scale warning is amber, followed by red and then black. Amber means there are signs of threat and travellers should  exercise caution; red signals there is a significant threat and calls for travellers to  avoid all non-essential trips; while black indicates a severe threat and all travel should be avoided.
On Friday, the government removed an amber alert for Russia imposed on August 10 because of health hazards caused by smog from forest fires. 
A Security Bureau spokesman said the adjustment was made after a routine review of the alert and was not linked to the chief executive's  visit to Russia this week.
The spokesman said the hostage crisis that killed eight Hong Kong residents prompted the black alert for the Philippines but he could not comment on the criteria or data used to assess a country's safety. 'We will take into account a number of factors, including the level of threat to personal safety, duration of the threat and whether the threat is targeted at tourists,' he said.
He was not able to comment on why the Philippines was more dangerous than the five countries at the amber level such as Pakistan.
Joseph Tung Yao-chung, executive director of the Hong Kong Travel Industry Council, said he knew little about how the government decided which countries were dangerous. 
'There must be something behind this but it's difficult for us to know what's happening. We cannot say if we agree or not and it's difficult for the trade to look into whether the place is safe or not,' he said.
Tung admitted that the OTA system caused many problems for the tourism industry with service providers such as airlines and hotels often refusing to refund payments because they believed the alert was unwarranted.
Since the black alert was placed on the Philippines, the council has received more than 230 calls from consumers about refunds related to the Philippines. 'All this is creating big disputes,' Tung said. More than 500 people have also cancelled their trips to the Philippines since Monday.  
International relations expert Professor Richard Hu from Hong Kong University said the black alert was about sending a message to Manila.
'It's necessary and reasonable, emotionally and also given the security situation,' he said.
Hu said 'these types of things happen everyday in the Philippines' with 138 reported cases of hostage situations in Manila last year.
'You can't say the Hong Kong government wants to tarnish their image but the position is very clear ... until the report has come out and gives a clear explanation what had happened and why and we can close the page on this, I don't think they will review the advice. I support that.'
Legislator Jeffrey Lam Kin-fung said that even though the hostage situation was over, the black alert reflected the 'sentiment of the people'.
'I would not say it is more dangerous now than two weeks ago but the sentiment is that we don't trust the government over there,' he said.
Declaring an entire country as a no-go zone is a flawed concept, according to security consultant Steve Vickers, a former head of the Hong Kong's Criminal Intelligence Bureau. 'In the real world, it's inequitable. The Philippines is no more or less dangerous than it was two weeks ago,' he said. 
Vickers said risk assessments were more accurate if carried out on a city basis rather than by country because safety issues were often confined to specific areas.
In the Philippines, the south was notoriously bad in terms of terrorists while Manila in the north was a crime hotspot.
'Thailand is a very high risk but I wouldn't write the whole country off.' 
Vickers,  head of FTI-International Risk, a company which specialises in political and security risk assessments for multinationals, said Hong Kong's travel alert system needed an overhaul. 'I think a little more thought is merited. I can understand why the government raised the warning ... but that's not really why the system was created. Obviously it was a terrible tragedy and it was grossly mishandled. You can't just blacken a whole country just because of one incident.'




Black alert is more than just a travel warning