EDITORIAL - Quick prosecution

After the slapstick handling of the Aug. 23 hostage crisis that ended in tragedy, who is facing criminal prosecution? Only one individual: Senior Police Officer 2 Gregorio Mendoza, brother of slain hostage taker Rolando Mendoza. The incident investigation and review committee or IIRC found that Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim’s order to “restrain” Gregorio precipitated Rolando’s shooting spree. Lim, who headed the city’s crisis management team, then left the scene together with the Manila police chief to have dinner in a nearby restaurant.

Gregorio, indicted for serious disobedience for allegedly trying to stop his brother from releasing the hostages, was ordered arrested the other day by the Manila Metropolitan Trial Court for failure to appear at a hearing. Gregorio’s lawyer had earlier said they would file a motion to quash the charge.

At least Gregorio is still using a lawyer instead of a gun, as his brother did, to argue his case. Anyone who tries to be reinstated into the police service by taking hostages needs to see a psychiatrist. There is no excuse for taking hostages, and then going berserk and murdering the captives. Rolando’s tantrum took a grievous human toll, apart from giving the country a major black eye.

Worsening that black eye, however, was the bungled response to the crisis, and the perception that weak institutions particularly in the justice system made Rolando snap. An issue that is more serious than Gregorio’s purported disobedience is the story that the hostage taker went berserk because he could not overturn his dismissal from the Manila police for extortion even after allegedly paying off Deputy Ombudsman Emilio Gonzales III. What has happened to this controversy?

The IIRC, according to reports, is now moving to the second phase of its work, which is to draw up recommendations to improve the mechanisms and institutions whose weaknesses contributed to the hostage fiasco. The public can only hope those reforms will move faster than the prosecution of Gregorio Mendoza.