MANILA, Philippines – Manila Police District (MPD) and Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) officers are in trouble for major discrepancies in their records of the August 23 hostage-drama.

The 5-man Incident Investigation and Review Committee (IIRC) probing the incident found a timeline discrepancy of more than an hour in the logbooks of the SWAT and the MPD.

Senior Police Officer 1 Alberto de Guzman told IIRC co-chair Leila de Lima on Wednesday that SWAT center records show that they first received report of the hostage-taking incident at 10:19 a.m.

The MPD official logbook, meanwhile, said the incident started at 9:07 a.m., and the first police officers were deployed eight minutes later.

“Wala man lang naka-realize na mali ng isang oras ang time na sinasabi nila? (Nobody realized that the timeline they mentioned was off by an hour?)” de Lima said during the IIRC hearing.

According to bus driver Alberto Lubang, hostage-taker Rolando Mendoza boarded the vehicle in Intramuros at 9:45 a.m. before announcing the hostage-taking about 2 minutes later.

If the police records are considered to be correct, it would show that they were already deployed in the area even before the hostage-taking incident started, de Lima explained.

She ordered the MPD and SWAT logbooks to be photocopied and examined thoroughly by the IIRC members to shed light on the discrepancy.

Magtibay, Yebra ordered recall of documents

Chief Superintendent Rodolfo Magtibay, former MPD chief, meanwhile admitted that he and hostage negotiator Superintendent Orlando Yebra ordered the recall of documents related to Mendoza’s robbery and extortion charges.

Magtibay, who was sacked from his post amid the backlash following the hostage crisis, told de Lima that he received word that the documents were being brought to the Office of the Ombudsman and the Department of Justice (DOJ) as part of Mendoza’s demand of a review of his cases.

He said he wanted to have a “quick look” at the documents.

He said he agreed later to have the documents submitted to their intended recipients.

However, they never reached the Ombudsman and the DOJ as Yebra ordered their recall again later in the day.