Nine killed on hijacked tourist bus in Philippines

MANILA, Philippines – It looked like a hostage rescue in slow motion: Police creeping up on the bus with sledgehammers and smashing first one window, then another, then trying and failing to rip open the door.

When they finally got inside, authorities said, they found eight bodies: seven Hong Kong tourists and the ex-policeman who had seized the bus to demand his job back. Another tourist later died in the hospital, a Chinese Embassy spokesman said.

The bloody denouement to the 12-hour drama in the heart of the Philippine capital, witnessed live on TV, rattled a country already accustomed to kidnappings and violence blamed on Muslim rebels. It provoked China’s condemnation and demands for an explanation, and an acknowledgment from Philippine President Benigno Aquino III that his police need more training and equipment.

It was 10:15 a.m. Monday in Manila when Rolando Mendoza, 55 and married with three children, hitched a ride with the tourists as they visited historic sites in the city. He wore a camouflage uniform and carried an M-16 rifle but didn’t seem unusual in the heavily policed capital.

Then he announced that he was taking the travelers hostage to win back his job.

According to newspaper reports, the former senior inspector was among five officers who had been charged with robbery, extortion and grave threats after a Manila hotel chef filed a complaint alleging they falsely accused him of using drugs to extort money. Mendoza was fired last year but claimed he was innocent.

With the bus parked on a Manila park parade ground, Mendoza stuck leaflets on windows, handwritten in English, saying “big mistake to correct a big wrong decision,” demanding media attention and threatening “big deal will start after 3 p.m. today.”

At first, matters proceeded peacefully. The hijacker freed nine hostages – three women and three children, all tourists, an elderly Hong Kong man, a Filipino photographer and his Filipino assistant – leaving 15 tourists and the Filipino driver on board. Police sealed the area and brought food for the hostages, along with fuel to keep the bus’s air conditioning running in the 90-degree heat.

Then negotiations began to go awry. Mendoza demanded a signed promise from the ombudsman, which decided his case, that it would be reviewed, but its delivery was delayed for hours, in part by Manila’s notorious traffic, and when it finally arrived he rejected it as insufficient.

Mayor Alfredo Lim, a former Manila police chief, said regional police commander Leocadio Santiago also issued an order reinstating Mendoza to “just accommodate his request, just to peacefully resolve this hostage situation.”

“But the problem was it wasn’t delivered before the shooting started, which precipitated the assault,” he told DZMM radio on Tuesday.

The hijacker’s brother Gregorio, also a Manila policeman, was asked to talk to him through the driver’s window but grew so agitated in claiming Mendoza had been unfairly sacked that police hustled him away, fearing he would inflame the situation.

That apparently angered Mendoza into firing a warning shot. Police made an initial attempt to board the bus, and the hijacker shot and wounded a police sharpshooter, said Nelson Yabut, head of the assault team. Single shots, then a burst of automatic fire, echoed through the night.

The Filipino bus driver managed to escape and, according to police officer Roderick Mariano, reported that Mendoza had fired at the tourists.

Yabut, the assault commander, said that “when he started shooting the hostages, that’s the time I gave the signal to my sniper to shoot when there is a clear view.” He said Mendoza died of a single shot to the head.

The Hong Kong government did not hide its displeasure at the handling of the incident. It issued a warning against travel to the Philippines, canceled planned tour groups and asked Hong Kong tourists still in the country to leave.