President Noynoy Aquino said it would be a short-term fallout but the immediate effects of the Manila hostage tragedy could spell trouble for the year-end tourism income of the country barring any more major disasters.

Some hotel and resort operators in Cebu reported cancellations of bookings, all of them Hong Kong tourists, to the Department of Tourism in Central Visayas (DOT-7). Manila hotels had it worse.

When one also takes into consideration the looming Philippine Airlines employees strike, one wonders how the country's tourism industry could get any worse.

Fortunately there were sympathizers?a Hong Kong daily brought a ray of hope and words of wisdom to its Chinese constituency alarmed and outraged over the Philippine National Police's handling of the crisis by advising them not to direct their hatred to all Filipinos.

Superstar Jackie Chan himself allayed the ?hate fears? of Filipino communities living in Hong Kong by saying that last Monday's hostage tragedy could have happened anywhere around the world.

And yet the blame game continues to be played by armchair hostage negotiation experts like the allies of former president Arroyo in Congress, who blamed the President, one of the press secretaries Ricky Carandang and Interior and Local Governments Secretary Jesse Robredo for failing to act decisively on the hostage situation.

They pointed to their former patron for having acted ?decisively? in crisis situations such as the seizing of an airport tower in 2003. But with the numerous impeachment attempts against her, the former president was more than ready ?to act decisively? and adopt a hard fist approach to situations that especially threaten her administration.

But enough of the blame game. What is being done now?

Not much at least for the next few days other than repairing the country's international image by sending the delegation headed by Vice President Jejomar Binay to assure the Chinese community in Hong Kong that the government is doing everything in its power to rectify their failings.

A massive public relations campaign is in order. Cebu officials can perhaps take part in this either through their own initiatives or in conjunction with the national government.

More significant, however, is the initiative of hotel and resort operators along with private sector stakeholders in drawing back Chinese travelers and holiday makers to Cebu's shores.

Can we hope for tourists to remember Cebu for its own merits, without getting enmeshed in the country?s stained image as a clumsy crisis handler?

The ?island in a the Pacific? tag doesn?t have the same impact any longer.

Tourist stakeholders will just have to roll up their sleeves and aggressively campaign to build confidence anew in the Chinese community that it's safe to visit Cebu and the Philippines.