Aquino vows heads will roll, aide says

Manila: President Benigno Aquino will revamp his cabinet as investigation has shown that key officials and security officers mishandled the negotiation and rescue operation of the hostage crisis that ended with the killing of eight Chinese nationals and a Filipino hostage-taker in Manila's Luneta Park on August 23, a senior official said.

"He [Aquino] promised heads will roll. That's the statement I can make," said Aquino's spokesman Edwin Lacierda.

"We are letting the investigation committee take its course," said Lacierda, in reference to the Incident Investigation and Review Committee (IIRC) led by Justice Secretary Leila de Lima.

Recommendation

At the end of its investigation, the IIRC will recommend the government officials or police officers who will be held accountable for the hostage crisis, Lacierda said.

But no cabinet member has formally resigned after the incident which soured China-Philippine relations.

At the same time, Superintendent Orlando Yebra, chief negotiator in the hostage-taking, said yesterday that he heard the hostage-taker, dismissed police officer Rolando Mendoza, cursed in his mobile phone, since someone from the Office of the Ombudsman, allegedly asked for P150,000 (Dh12,500) from him.

"I know that he was no longer talking to [Manila] Vice Mayor Isko Moreno," Yebra recalled, adding he learned later that the hostage-taker was then talking to Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez and Deputy Ombudsman Emilio Gonzalez

Earlier, on Saturday, Chief Inspector Romeo Salvador, an assistant negotiator, also told investigators that he heard Mendoza curse a person on his mobile phone regarding a P150,000 (Dh12,500) alleged extortion money.

When he heard this, Deputy Ombudsman Salvador said in a TV interview, "As soon as the hostage-taker unilaterally talked about being asked to dole out alleged extortion money, I told him, ‘It [the statement] was a set-up'."

On August 23, when the dismissed police officer announced the hostage-taking, he demanded to be re-instated to the police organisation. In 2009, the Ombudsman ruled that the police officer and four others should be dismissed after a civilian had filed in 2008 extortion and grave physical injury cases against them in 2008.

In this light, Hong Kong authorities promised to return the mobile phone of the hostage-taker that Philippine authorities had mistakenly given to the Chinese investigators.

The cell phone will help investigators determine the calls made or coursed to the hostage-taker before he opened fire and allegedly killed some of the hostages, Philippine investigators said. In the meantime, the IIRC will extend its probe until tomorrow.

Autopsies

The Philippine National Police will present tomorrow their findings of the autopsies on the victims.

Hong Kong authorities hinted that some hostages were killed by policemen who stormed the tourist bus where the hostage-taker had held some 25 hostages prior to the release of nine of them last August 23.

Last Sunday, Director General Jesus Versoza said he was stepping down on September 15, three months ahead of schedule. He left for the southern Philippines at the height of the hostage crisis.