Manila to wrap up hostage siege report this week

An official report on a bus hijacking that left eight Hong Kong tourists dead is to be submitted to Philippine President Benigno Aquino later this week, the country's justice chief said Wednesday.

The report is expected to contain specific names of police and government officials to be criminally or administratively sanctioned over last month's  hostage fiasco, which has undermined Aquino's young government.

"It's a very exhaustive, fact-intensive report," said Justice Secretary Leila de Lima who is heading the inquiry.

The report was scheduled to be submitted to Aquino on Wednesday, but de Lima told AFP that investigators needed two more days to complete some sections.

"We have advised the president that we will submit the report on Friday, the 17th," she said.
"It's not possible to submit it today."

The report, she said, would include testimony of the survivors as well as official accounts of the police commanders on the ground during the August 23 hostage-taking by a disgruntled former police inspector.

Police have admitted missing repeated chances to take out the hostage-taker during the day-long crisis, which culminated in a bungled rescue bid that was broadcast live on television around the world.

Aquino, whose political capital has been diminished by the fiasco, said Tuesday he hoped to draw a line under the tragedy and move to rescue the tourist industry battered by the crisis.

"Many people are saying that what happened at the Quirino Grandstand was the first test of my administration," Aquino said as he named a new police chief.

The country's top cop left Manila as the crisis unfolded, and decided to retire three months early as the fiasco blew up in Aquino's face.

Critics led by Edcel Lagman, the minority leader in parliament, have pounced on Aquino's decision to leave the handling of the crisis to city officials and police as indicative of weak leadership.

"The crisis, because of its international repercussions and effects on our economy, demanded decisive and forthright presidential action, but the president was nowhere to be found," Lagman said.

"There was an obvious failure of leadership and now we're the laughing stock of the international community."

Sacked Manila policeman Rolando Mendoza, armed with an assault rifle and a handgun, hijacked a bus full of Hong Kong tourists in a bid to win back his old job and clear his name of extortion charges.

One of the inquiry's tasks was to establish whether the hostages were killed by Mendoza, the police rescuers or other forces deployed in the area during the crisis.

De Lima, the head of the inquiry, has backed away from her earlier suggestions that some of the hostages could have been hit by "friendly fire," saying at least one survivor pointed to Mendoza as the killer.

Aquino has pledged to send a high-level delegation led by Vice President Jejomar Binay to Hong Kong to try to mollify an angry backlash in a key tourist market where about 250,000 Filipinos are employed.

He has also vowed to improve the capability of the security forces, who are already battling communist and Muslim separatist insurgencies, to deal with similar situations in the future.
 

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