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Lim issued arrest order’
But mayor denies MPD director’s testimony
MANILA, Philippines — It was “Dirty Harry” who called the shots in Monday’s bungled hostage drama that left eight Chinese tourists dead, their captor riddled with bullets and the Philippine image overseas severely tarnished.
Chief Supt. Rodolfo Magtibay, who has been relieved as head of the Manila Police District, said Thursday during a nationally televised Senate hearing that Mayor Alfredo Lim led the crisis committee that handled Monday’s standoff.
The absence of Lim, a former Manila police chief who earned a reputation similar to the San Francisco detective in the Harry Callahan movies of the 1970s, in the drama was underscored in the Senate inquiry into why the seizure by dismissed Senior Insp. Rolando Mendoza of a tourist bus filled with Hong Kong tourists had turned into a bloodbath.
Magtibay also said it was Lim who ordered the arrest of Senior Police Officer 2 Gregorio Mendoza, which prompted the policeman’s brother to kill hostages.
In a talk with reporters before and after the Senate hearing, however, Lim denied Magtibay’s testimony that he ordered the arrest of the hostage-taker’s brother.
Also working behind the scenes during the critical moments, according to Magtibay, were Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo and Director General Jesus Verzosa of the Philippine National Police.
Questioning in the hearing chaired by Sen. Gregorio Honasan, head of the committee on public order, focused on the glaring absence of President Benigno Aquino III’s men during the crisis that began at 10 a.m. on Monday.
Robredo said that the President’s top officials never abdicated their roles, stressing that they were coordinating with ground commanders. He said that the strategy was “to strengthen institutions” and not apply “personal solutions.”
But Honasan disagreed with Robredo. “Our culture warrants a leader as the situation unfolds. We want to see, hear, touch who is in charge and boost our level of confidence and show us that everything is under control,” he said.
Magtibay initially evaded Sen. Ramon Revilla Jr.’s question on who ordered the arrest of Mendoza’s brother, Gregorio Mendoza, a policeman who had gone to Luneta purportedly to help in the negotiations.
“That was the reason why the hostage-taker became agitated. Whoever gave that order should be held responsible,” said Revilla, a movie action star who acted as a hostage negotiator in a similar incident two years ago.
“Sir, it’s Mayor Lim, sir,” Magtibay said. “I was with Mayor Lim. My instruction is to escort Mendoza to the general assignment section. If I remember it right the exact words were ‘arestuhin na yan.’ It was not directly issued to me.”
Suspected as conspirator
Magtibay said that Lim ordered the arrest of Gregorio after the chief negotiator, Supt. Orlando Yebra Jr., told the mayor that the brother was part of the conspiracy in the hostage-taking.
“Instead of appeasing his brother as agreed before, he (Gregorio) incited his brother not to give up,” Magtibay said.
He said this happened after Gregorio told his brother that the negotiators had not returned the gun they had taken from him.
Magtibay said Gregorio, who had volunteered to escort the negotiating team as a “friendly face,” angered negotiators when he tried to break the police cordon with his gun and was disarmed.
The negotiators were then handing over to Mendoza a letter from the Office of the Ombudsman on his demands for the dismissal of extortion charges against him and his reinstatement.
Magtibay said the team was surprised when Gregorio told his brother not to give up because authorities had not returned his gun.
He said that Mendoza then was already agitated upon reading the Ombudsman’s letter, which he brushed off as “garbage.”
First cause of distress
Magtibay said that Mendoza was talking to a still unidentified person on the phone while reading the Ombudsman’s letter, which he claimed was his first cause of distress in the negotiations.
This was verified by Robredo who said that Mendoza’s “temperament suddenly changed.”
Magtibay said the identity of the caller had not been established, but that the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group now had Mendoza’s phone SIM card.
In his testimony, Manila Vice Mayor Isko Moreno said that he and Lim were in a meeting when they got word of the standoff. He said Lim’s first order was to cordon off the scene and find out what the city government could do to help.
Upon questioning by Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, Magtibay said he had no knowledge of the senator’s allegation that Lim took a low profile in the hostage crisis because he had recommended the dismissal of Mendoza, ostensibly after extortion charges were brought against him by a Filipino hotel chef two years ago.
New police chief
On Wednesday, Magtibay offered to go on leave pending investigations of the hostage drama. His offer was promptly accepted. He said he had been replaced by Senior Supt. Francisco Villaroman.
Magtibay said he had no idea why only four members of the Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team involved in the botched rescue were relieved by Verzosa, who was in Cagayan de Oro City and failed to attend the hearing.
Broadcaster Erwin Tulfo testified that he was in a three-way telephone conference with Mendoza and Michael Rogas, the news anchor at Radio Mindanao Network, about 30 to 45 minutes before firing began.
Tulfo, who was at the scene, said Mendoza was shouting he would kill the hostages one by one if his brother was not released. He said firing began five minutes later.
Tulfo said Rogas told him to warn police officials and Yebra and give in to Mendoza’s request but he could not find any of the team members before the first shot rang out.
“He shot first the guy who was cuffed in the front seat. Then it went bang, bang, bang. And then he was silent,” Tulfo said.
“We knew the hostage-taker was agitated. We have reasons to believe that he would hurt (the hostages) because he was agitated. We were prepared for the worst,” Magtibay said.
Assault order
Director Leocadio Santiago Jr., the head of the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO), said he estimated that six to eight shots were fired inside the bus shortly before the bus driver escaped.
“A quick computation made me believe that if the shots really hit the hostages, only six to eight hostages were shot so it is my duty as ground commander to order the assault to save the remaining hostages,” Santiago said.
Mendoza commandeered the bus with 25 people, mostly Chinese on a tour of Intramuros at midmorning Monday. He freed 10 hostages before the dramatic bloodbath as night fell. The event was covered live on local and international television.
Eight Chinese were killed. Mendoza also was gunned down, his body riddled with eight bullet wounds.
Except for the bus driver who escaped unscathed, the rest of the people who remained in the bus were wounded. Most of the survivors returned to Hong Kong on Wednesday.
Initial events positive
Sen. Miguel Zubiri asked why Lim, Robredo and Verzosa did not hold a command conference to show that the government was in control.
Santiago maintained that the Manila police followed local and international protocols from the designation of the district police officer as ground commander to the deployment of resources to get the job done.
“The initial events developed on a positive note. It did not require immediate replacement of the ground commander. He must be allowed to evaluate the situation and if the negotiations failed, then we will make the decision to supersede or replace him,” Santiago said.
Zubiri told Robredo that he should have acted more swiftly and strongly when the talks failed as of 3 p.m. because the “buck stopped with you.”
Robredo said that he wanted an institutional response to the crisis and felt that the city officials could manage it on their own.
“Mayor Lim was more experienced … and protocol tells us he is in the best position to negotiate, settle the case,” said Robredo, a former Naga City mayor.
Robredo said that as far as he was concerned, the negotiations were successful, pointing out that 10 of the hostages were initially released.
He admitted, however, that tactical police intervention proved to be “inadequate.” With a report from Jeannette Andrade
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