On August 23, at around 10am, an ex-cop boards a tourist bus and takes them hostage in desperation to resolve his misconduct case.
Rolando Mendoza, a native of Cavite but currently resides in Batangas, was relieved from service after being charged of extortion and illegal arrest. He has claimed innocence from the crime and filed for a motion for reconsideration, which,was taking too long thus preventing him to be of service again to the Manila Police’s Mobile Patrol. Apparently, this made Mendoza impatient and in hopes of speeding things up and getting the government’s attention, he took into hostage approximately 20-25 Hong Kong nationals who were here in the Philippines for a vacation trip . Mendoza demanded for the dismissal of his case with the Ombudsman and gave the authorities a 3pm deadline to accomplish his demand. The hostage taker’s brother was able to convince him to extend his set deadline. After a few hours, the Ombudsman sent a letter promising him to review the case in response to his plea, but this didn’t please Mendoza.
At around 7pm, Mendoza’s brother was arrested in allegations of agitating him. Due to the detailed media coverage, Mendoza was able to see this on television as he was watching the news inside the bus. This upset him and he threatened that he will start firing at the hostages if his brother gets taken away.
At around that time as well, police and swat teams started to make actions to already pursue the hostage taker. Gunshots were fired, glasses were broken, tear gas thrown. The pursuit lasted until 9pm, a total of 11 hours, with the hostage taker being dead because of a shot in the head, 10 innocent victims killed and with only a few survivors.
So what’s my two cents worth on this gruesome and sad incidence?
