Policemen in Manila busy eating as hostages were being shot

Manila: Philippines police commanders and their negotiators "were eating in a nearby Chinese restaurant" when a dismissed police officer started shooting at 15 hostages in a tourist bus between 7pm and 7.30pm on August 23, said the bus driver in a candid declaration to the fact-finding inquiry.

"I'm very sure, [Rolando Mendoza] shot at the passengers, one after the other from a long firearm [M-16 rifle]. Though, I didn't hear their cries, I'm sure he went after them," bus driver Alberto Lubang told members of the Incident Investigation Review Committee (IIRC).

Lubang said he pleaded with Mendoza for his life, saying, "Please release me now. Pity me".

He said the hostage-taker replied: "It's up to you. [Do what you can]."

Lubang said he used a nail file to destroy the handcuffs that kept him tied to the wheel and escaped through the window of the tourist bus. This was after Mendoza fired shots.

Outside the bus, Lubang told reporters and policemen that the hostage-taker had shot passengers.

Narrating the incident, Lubang told the investigators: "I really saw how they [hostages] were shot. I thought it was over. In my mind, they were all killed".

The investigators also listened to a three-hour tape recorded by Radio Mindanao Nationwide (RMN) prior to the gunman's death. RMN anchor Michael Rogas had interviewed Mendoza, who watched it on a TV monitor inside the bus when the police were trying to question his brother Gregorio Mendoza.

Losing control

The hostage-taker said in the interview: "Here, I can see it on TV. My brother, a policeman, is being treated like a pig. He has not sinned. He doesn't know what's really happening [he came to negotiate for me]".

"I heard him say [to himself, while looking at the TV monitor] several times, ‘Release him [my brother]. Otherwise, I'll finish all of them [hostages]'," Lubang also told the investigators.

Eight Hong Kong tourists were killed in the incident, and Mendoza was shot by government snipers.

While this was happening, police officers had gone to the Emerald Garden restaurant for dinner, where there was no TV monitor for them to watch what was happening at the scene of the hostage-taking, sources said.

Meanwhile, there was a discrepancy about the time the hostage crisis started. Lubang said it began at 9.45am, adding that policemen arrived near the Quirino Grandstand at Manila's central Luneta Park at 11am.

Lubang said he was sure about the time because he and Chinese tour guide Diana Chang were allowed by the hostage-taker to call their offices about the incident.