Philippines hostage drama

Today police admit they made many mistakes during a 12-hour ordeal on a bus in Manila which saw the deaths of eight Hong Kong tourists along with their Filipino hostage-taker, the drama unfolded yesterday after disgruntled policeman Rolando Mendoza, 55 stepped aboard their tourist bus and demanded to be given a ride. Those on board realised something was wrong when he ordered the driver to lock the door and waved around his M-16 assault rifle.

The situation soon escalated when police closed in on the bus causing Mendoza to spray the hostages with bullets, commandos then fired dozens of bullets into the bus and struck at its windows with sledgehammers as they tried to storm it however Mendoza used his hostages inside as human shields. However criticism about how the situation was handled by police came after revelations stated they had an ideal opportunity to take Mendoza down when he was stood outside the bus talking to negotiators before any shots were fired. However this did not happen which turned out to be a critical mistake.

Speaking about the incident President Aquino, who came to power two months ago said: “This tragedy highlights many flaws in the ability of Philippine security forces to hand hostage situations, there are a lot of things that resulted in a tragedy. Obviously we should be improving.” He also claimed that a main flaw in their actions was that the crises was played out through the media, with the gunman being allowed to speak on radio and watch events live on the bus’s TV, giving him insights into police actions. However the President insisted that waiting for more than 10 hours had been the right thing for the police to do. “Up to that point the police believed they could convince the gunman to stand down.”

Its believed that Mendoza had recently been sacked from his job as a policeman due to claims of extortion against him and he had seized the bus to make public his demands to be reinstated. Before the claims of extortion and his dismissal Rolando Mendoza, had been regarded as a model officer, once being named as among the top 10 policemen in the country.
After the incident relatives of the victims in Hong Kong expressed their anger over the way the situation was handled and how it ended, Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang said: “The way it was handled – particularly the outcome – is very disappointing.”

Two of the surviving tourists have also been confirmed as British nationals, according to the Foreign Office. An official from there has said: “We can confirm that two of the released hostages are British nationals. We have offered consular assistance and stand ready to provide it if requested. We are not aware of any other British nationals involved.”

Picture courtesy of Jun Acullador

World News