'We are not the bad guys here'

Former Manila Police chief Manila Mayor Fred Lim and former tricycle driver, actor, and councilor Vice Mayor Isko Moreno relived the heartbreaking, sometimes even gory details of the bus siege at the Luneta (Rizal Park) last Aug. 23 and voiced a common appeal: Let it not be forgot that several policemen put their lives on the line to save the hostages’ lives and the Philippines’ honor. And most of them did it under the driving rain without Kevlar vests, gas masks and other sophisticated equipment, the absence of which was not all their fault.

At the Bulong Pulungan lunch forum at the Sofitel Philippine Plaza the other day, Lim expressed concern that dismissed police official Rolando Mendoza, who hijacked the tourist bus with 21 Hong Kong Chinese nationals and four Filipinos on board to demand his reinstatement into the service (from which he claims to have been separated unjustly), would be remembered with more sympathy than the policemen who tried to end the siege.

Moreno, who was on Ground Zero as he tried to be a bridge between Mendoza and the Office of the Ombudsman, is more explicit: “I wish we said ‘thank you’ to all those who put their lives on the line to save the hostages that night. People should answer for their mistakes but let’s be very careful in judging them.”

“Do you know why one policeman seemed to be backing out from the bus? It was because of the impact of the bullet on his helmet!” Moreno stressed.

Lim recalled that he and Moreno were in a meeting when he was approached at 10:45 a.m. by Sr. Supt. Alex Gutierrez who told him the dire news of the hostage-taking.

“My first question was, ‘Where is General (Rodolfo) Magtibay (chief of the Manila Police)?’ He said General Magtibay was already at the scene with his officers,” Lim recalled. Moreno then volunteered to assist in the resolution of the standoff and Lim asked him to contact Magtibay, who was the ground commander, for clearance.

Lim said President Aquino called him at 1:30 p.m. for an update. He told the President that the ground commander was Magtibay and the chief hostage negotiator was Supt. Orlando Yebra. “You ensure that hostages are safe and peaceful resolution is accomplished,” the President instructed Lim.

“I said you can be sure General Magtibay will exhaust all means to effect the release and ensure the safety of hostages,” he assured President Aquino.

Moreno then volunteered to go to Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez in Quezon City and vowed that he would not go back to the Luneta empty-handed. He had a 3 p.m. deadline so he requested an MMDA officer on a motorcycle, whose name he forgot to take in his haste, to escort him to the Ombudsman, admitting that though he had no blinkers, he must have gone counter-flow on the road many times. He was able to convince Gutierrez to talk to the hostage-taker, and she told him, as she said in the letter that Moreno handcarried to the Luneta, that “ I shall personally review the Motion for Reconsideration that you have filed in your case. At the moment, the records of the case are with the lawyer whom I have assigned to take a fresh look into your case. I shall require him to turn over to me the whole records (sic) of the case. I hope you would take my word for it and thank you for understanding my position as I completely understand yours.”

Moreno asked the hostage-taker for an extension of the deadline. Before he left, Gutierrez asked for a photo op with him, which at first puzzled the vice mayor. “She wanted me to take our photos in my cellphone camera. Yun pala she wanted to make sure that if Mendoza asked for proof that I had really been to see her, that I had a picture to show him.”

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Lim said he went to the command post at the Luneta at around 5 p.m. and he saw Mendoza’s brother SPO2 Gregorio Mendoza. Earlier Gregorio went to the bus but was accosted by Chief Insp. Romeo Salvador, the co-hostage negotiator, and when frisked, the search yielded a .45 calibre pistol.

 “I asked him, ‘Bakit naman ginawa ng kapatid mo yan’?”

“Gusto lang namin na malinis yung pangalan niya,” Lim quoted the younger Mendoza as telling him. He told Lim there was a pending Motion for Reconsideration of the decision of the Ombudsman to dismiss Rolando from service with four of his men.

“Bakit kailangan pa mang-hostage?” Lim asked Gregorio. The latter told him they thought the timing of the hostage-taking was perfect because, “mainit ngayon ang katayuan ng Ombudsman. Magandang timing ito para maiprisinta ang aming gripes.”

Lim said Gregorio was at this point “ normal but insistent that justice be done to his brother.”

Moreno arrived at the Luneta command post at this point, holding the Ombudsman’s letter triumphantly. The letter was read to Gregorio and according to Lim, he said it would help appease his older brother Rolando.

It was at this point that it was decided that Yebra, Salvador and Gregorio would bring the Ombudsman’s letter to Rolando in the bus. When they neared the bus, the negotiators saw Rolando on his cellphone. “Noong inabot ang sulat, binasa niya ang contents sa kausap niya. Later on, ang reaction niya, nag-iba na. Hindi namin malaman kung sino ang kausap niya.”

What Capt. Rolando Mendoza told Yebra and Salvador was chilling, because it dampened hopes that the letter would secure the remaining hostages’ release.

“Basura ito!” Rolando reportedly told the negotiators. “Hindi ito ang hinihingi namin. Immediate reinstatement ang gusto namin!”

Lim said Yebra assured the agitated hostage-taker that the review of his case, “is just the first step. After the review, the second step is the reinstatement.”

According to the negotiators’ report to Lim, it was at this time that Gregorio addressed his older brother and said, “Huwag ka papayag kasi hanggang ngayon, hindi pa binabalik ang baril ko.”

Rolando then lost his temper, according to Lim. “Doon nag-iba ang attitude niya at nagmura. Nagmura. He said, ‘O, sabi niyo isosoli ang baril? Ano ito? Lokohan? Pag hindi niyo dinala dito ang reinstatement order, sasampol ako ng isa dito’!”

According to Lim, Rolando Mendoza then fired at the negotiators. “Tayo ang pinaputukan!” Salvador told Yebra.

When they reached the command center, Yebra told the ground commander, General Magtibay, of Gregorio’s actuations in front of his brother. According to the Manila Mayor, Yebra then told Magtibay: “Kakargohan ko ito (Gregorio) ng accessory sa hostage-taking. He is a conspirator!”

Lim said that Gregorio became restless and hostile. It was at this point that he ordered that Gregorio be handcuffed, “not arrested.”

“Unfortunately walang may posas sa mga tao doon!” Lim recalled with frustration. At this point, Yebra called Lim and Magtibay for a private conference in an adjoining room and asked that the negotiators agree to Rolando’s demand for immediate reinstatement in the PNP. But the legal officer of the Philippine National Police Herold Ubalde said there would be legal problems attendant to that, which would set a dangerous precedent.

They then went back to the room where Gregorio was to consult NCRPO chief Leocadio Santiago. The police then arrived with handcuffs, but Gregorio Mendoza had calmed down. So Lim said not to handcuff him anymore but just to take him to Police Headquarters.

“Paglabas, biglang tumakbo sa lugar ng media sa harap ng Luneta detachment at dito na nagkaroon ng iskandalo, naghihilahan na. Ito pala napapanood ni Captain Mendoza inside the bus. It contributed to his agitation. The police extricated Gregorio from the hold of his relatives and when brought to the mobile car, doon pinosas.”

And the rest, as they say, is now history.

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Lim said at the forum that when he left Luneta at 6:45 p.m., he thought it was going to be a long night. “Sabi ko kay Magtibay, waiting game na lang tayo, hintayin nating ma- exhaust, mapagod si Mendoza at baka kung puyat na, mag give-in.”

Lim said it was when the driver escaped and reported that the hostages were dead that the ground commander decided there was no recourse but to assault. He also acknowledged a survivor’s account that Mendoza started to shoot at the hostages when they tried to overpower him. “One of the passengers said when Mendoza shot the guide handcuffed to the door, five of them jumped on him to seize the rifle. But Mendoza was able to extricate himself, took two steps back and fired at them.”

Before the night was over, Moreno, who is only 35 years old, made sure he visited the survivors, as well as the dead hostages. Two, he said, were killed by a knife. He said he wanted to see for himself what happened to the hostages because this time, he didn’t want the good cops blamed for the deaths of these innocent, helpless human beings.

By day break, the nightmare wasn’t over — for the survivors, the grieving families, even the policemen, who, until now, feel the whiplash.

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