Officials left as bus hijack hit critical stage
MANILA - Philippine officials managing a hostage crisis left their posts to fill up on coffee and food as a gunman who had seized a busload of Hong Kong tourists began shooting, an inquiry heard Saturday.
Manila deputy mayor Isko Moreno told a public hearing he went to a nearby hotel to watch the crisis that left eight hostages dead play out on television while mayor Alfredo Lim had admitted Friday heading to a nearby restaurant.
The testimony by Moreno on Saturday came after details emerged of a catalogue of mistakes by other police and government officials in the central Manila standoff.
Moreno and Lim said they left the crisis command post that was within walking distance of the bus at dusk, soon after the hostage-taker rejected a compromise deal and fired a warning shot.
"What was I supposed to do, go meet the bullets?" Moreno retorted at the hearing called by an inquiry board set up by President Benigno Aquino to investigate the fiasco.
Sacked policeman Rolando Mendoza took the busload of tourists hostage on August 23 in a desperate bid to clear himself of extortion charges and get his old job back.
The standoff, which played out live on global television, came to a bloody end when police stormed the bus in a botched attempt to rescue the hostages. A police sniper without night-vision goggles eventually shot dead the gunman.
Moreno said he felt frustrated the city government's failure to bring a peaceful end to the day-long crisis.
He drove to a nearby hotel to have coffee alone, and asked the waiter to switch from a sports channel so he could watch the police rescue operation live.
Lim and Moreno were the chairman and vice chairman respectively of a local "crisis management committee" assigned to resolve the crisis.
Lim, a retired Manila police chief, gave evidence to the board on Friday, saying he went to a restaurant nearby after the gunman fired a warning shot at the negotiators.
Lim said he believed the crisis would drag on all night and that he needed to eat as he'd had no food since the crisis began in mid-morning.
Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, the head of the inquiry, told Moreno Saturday she felt the top two city officials had left the decision-making to the local police in the crucial last hour before the assault on the bus.
"During the critical moments we learned that Mayor Lim went to (the restaurant) and you went to (the hotel)," de Lima added.
Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo, a member of the inquiry board, echoed de Lima's observations.
"It seemed as though you entrusted the police with full responsibility for the situation," he told the vice mayor.
The police commander of Metropolitan Manila, Leocadio Santiago, said Saturday he saw the police ground commander, Chief Superintendent Rodolfo Magtibay, with Lim at the restaurant when Magtibay ordered the assault.
"Since the mayor and task group commander were in one place I did not see a lapse," testified Santiago.
On Friday the inquiry was told the country's police chief left Manila halfway through the standoff and the force's best-trained unit sat out the bungled assault on the bus.
Other police and official witnesses also testified that they missed repeated chances to shoot the hostage-taker because they believed they could negotiate an end to the crisis without bloodshed.
Inspector Romeo Salvador, one of two police negotiators, told the inquiry on Saturday that discussions with the gunman broke down because other people got in the way of their work. However he said he did not know who these people were.
"In my personal opinion other people interfered," said Salvador.
The negotiator said a superior had overruled his suggestion that he try to grab and overpower the gunman.
President Aquino said Friday he took responsibility for the tragedy, which has damaged ties with Hong Kong and hurt the country's tourism industry.
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"Lim said he believed the
"Lim said he believed the crisis would drag on all night and that he needed to eat as he'd had no food since the crisis began in mid-morning."
Hasn't he heard of the word take-out or take-away?
Either that or he could just send someone to bring him food.
In either case, why does the entire ground command post have to move to another location just because one man is hungry?
Wasn't it possible to take turns i.e. shifts so one can go to the loo, to eat etc?
HK Bus in the headlines until now?
Other newspapers have the USS Gay Washington aircraft carrier in their headlines, emphasizing how their Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell sailors and officers will be spending millions at the SM Mall of Asia and other establishments to replace the tourist revenue lost because of the HK bus tragedy.
I wouldn't be surprised if the CIA were involved with Mendoza and the PNP, just as Galman was obviously not the lone gunman who shot Ninoy Aquino. John Perkins, in his book, Confessions of an Economic Hitman, wrote about how the CIA uses assassinations to spark wars, coups or revolutions for US interests.
http://www.economichitman.com
Perkins also wrote in his book, A Game as Old as Empire, how 800 leaked World Bank documents prove that the Philippines was a specific target of American economic sabotage.
http://www.bkconnection.com/ProdDetails.asp?ID=9781576753958
WikiLeaks.com has also recently released a secret CIA document that describes how the CIA exports terrorism. And the "coincidental" visit of thousands of American sailors to Manila just after the HK bus incident seems to be suspicious.
But old tricks don't work anymore. As the saying goes, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." So any attempt to use old divide-and-conquer strategies is futile.
Still, it would have been interesting if ABS-CBN journalists and photographers were able to photograph some shots of Fil-Am sailors proposing to their white boyfriends, while holding each other's hands, and wishing for gay marriage to be finally legalized also in the Philippine, all under the panoramic view of a Manila-Bay sunset.
All I say to that
is ........the Blind leading the Blind.
Great show from the teamleaders, go and have something to eat or a cup of coffee.
They should all be demoted back to traffic police officers without ANY weapon at all.
Ok maybe a water pistol.
You said it!!! Thank you
You said it!!! Thank you brother!!! I hate to say it but its what they about us - "Filipinos are cowards."
And for those who tend to disagree and start ranting about how they are not a coward. You are just justifying yourself so you don't have to face reality. So don't even bother posting or replying.
ACTIONS SPEAKS LOUDER THAN WORDS!!!