By CARLOS H. CONDE
The New York Times
Published: August 23, 2010
MANILA — Eight hostages were killed and one was critically wounded when an armed police officer who was fired last year took a tourist bus hostage in downtown Manila on Monday, opening a 12-hour standoff that ended after police commandos stormed the bus.
Television broadcasts showed at least 6 of the 15 hostages crawling out of the bus, but the fate of the rest was not immediately known. The hostage-taker, Rolando Mendoza, was killed by sniper fire, according to news reports.
Enrique Ona, the health secretary, told Philippine news outlets that eight hostages had died and that the survivors were being treated in hospitals around Manila.
The chief executive of Hong Kong, Donald Tsang, said Monday night that at least seven Hong Kong residents had been killed in what he described as a “major tragedy.”
“The way it was handled, particularly the outcome, I find is disappointing,” he told a news conference Hong Kong, according to Reuters.
At least nine hostages had been released earlier, including three children and a diabetic. Three of the freed were Filipinos. According to the authorities, there were 15 other people inside the bus before the police began their assault.
Live broadcasts from the scene showed police commandos, their rifles drawn, surrounding the bus and opening an emergency exit as emergency vehicles converged at the scene. A television reporter at the scene said there had been additional gunfire after police tried to enter the bus, but it was not clear who was shooting, or whether anyone had been hit.
A short time earlier, the driver of the bus managed to escape after cutting himself loose from handcuffs Mr. Mendoza had put on him. The driver jumped through a window, ran from the bus and screamed, “Everybody is dead!” to a group of journalists who had clustered at the scene.
Police officers began the assault moments after the driver escaped.
President Aquino, in a news briefing at around midnight, expressed regret over the hostage crisis but defended the actions of the authorities. He said the crisis lasted so long because the ground commanders exercised caution in dealing with Mr. Mendoza and did not want to “force the situation.”
“We were going to wait him out,” Mr. Aquino said. “The idea was to let the ground commanders who are the experts in this field handle the operation with minimal interference from people who are less expert.”
Although he did not directly criticize the news media, Mr. Aquino said that Mr. Mendoza may have gained some advantage from the live coverage by news networks, which showed the assault team’s every move.
“To a certain extent, he may have had a bird’s eye view of the developments, which might not have helped,” the president said.
The drama began shortly after 9 a.m. when Mr. Mendoza, 55, boarded a Hong Thai Travel tour bus near Intramuros, a popular tourist destination in Manila, and took the passengers, most of them Chinese nationals from Hong Kong, as hostages.
Rodolfo Magtibay, the chief of the Manila Police District, told reporters on the scene that Mr. Mendoza had demanded the return of his job and benefits. The authorities said Mr. Mendoza had been dismissed in 2009 after accusations he had extorted money from a hotel chef accused of using drugs.
The bus sat parked with its curtains drawn at the Quirino Grandstand near the Manila Bay, a public plaza where Mr. Aquino took his oath of office less than two months before. For hours, the broadcasts indicated no movement inside the bus, except when three shots were fired through the windshield.
The presence of cameras appeared to play a role in how the standoff unfolded.
The situation seemed to escalate after the gunman’s brother, Gregorio Mendoza, who is also a police officer, complained to reporters gathered near the scene that the police had wanted to implicate him in the hostage-taking. He also accused the police of trying to kill him.
In front of the cameras, Gregorio Mendoza was picked up the by the police and shoved into a police car, his relatives wailing behind him.
Earlier, the hostage-taker had warned the authorities not to harm his family.
Shots were heard soon after the gunman’s brother was taken into custody, raising the possibility that those on the bus were watching the crisis play out on a television monitor, which is usually present inside such a tourist bus.
Using sledgehammers, the police tried break down the windshield and glass windows of the bus but were forced to stand down as gunshots were fired from the bus. At least one person, a bystander, was hit in the leg by one of the bullets.
Toward the end of the standoff, police officers threw tear gas inside the bus, apparently forcing Rolando Mendoza to go near the bus’s main door, which had been torn down by the police. Shots were heard and in a split second the body of a man — presumably Mr. Mendoza — was seen slumped by the door, apparently dead.
Several of the unharmed were taken off the bus through the emergency exit, visibly shaken, some of them crying. By then, dozens of people, mostly kibitzers, had surrounded the bus, unmindful of the heavy rain.
Throughout the day, the gunman wrote his demands on cardboard he would then paste on the windshield of the bus. One of the messages read, “Big mistake to correct a big wrong decision.”
Late in the afternoon, he posted a message saying, “Media now,” apparently telling journalists to come to him. But by then the police prevented reporters from even getting near the bus.
Isko Moreno, the vice-mayor of Manila, said on television that Mr. Mendoza had been disgruntled and merely wanted to be heard. He said Mr. Mendoza sought to overturn his dismissal from the service and felt that he was being neglected.
In an interview with Radio Mindanao Network, a Manila station, Mr. Mendoza admitted shooting two of the hostages and threatened to kill more if his demands were not met.
“I shot two Chinese,” he told the station in Tagalog. “I will finish them all if they do not stop.”
The hostage drama captivated — and angered — many Filipinos, with many of them blaming the news coverage for the way it played out.
Eight hours later, four of Twitter’s “trending topics” were about the hostage-taking, with many postings using strong language.
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