Manila Hostages: Rolando Mendoza, Ex-Cop, Held Tourists On Bus (VIDEO, PHOTOS)

(AP) (SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO, PHOTOS OF MANILA HOSTAGE SITUATION) MANILA, Philippines - A 12-hour hostage stand-off on a hijacked Philippine bus ended in bloodshed Monday, with officials saying at least seven Chinese tourists were dead along with the disgruntled ex-policeman who seized their vehicle in a bid to get his job back.

At least six captives survived, four of whom were seen crawling out the back door of the bus after Philippine police stormed it Monday evening when the hostage-taker started shooting at the 15 Chinese tourists inside, said police Senior Superintendent Nelson Yabut.

He said the hostage-taker was killed with a sniper shot to the head after he wounded a police sharpshooter.

Police and ambulances were lined up next to the vehicle in the pouring rain after the standoff ended. Local hospitals reported seven bodies of hostages were brought in. One other hostage was hospitalized in critical condition, and five others were unharmed.

Officials have yet to disclose the fate of the two other hostages.

Footage of the standoff from Reuters:

PHOTOS VIA AP AND GETTY:

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Policemen take position as they start their attack on the bus.

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Policemen take position as they start their attack on the bus.

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he crisis began when the dismissed policeman, Rolando Mendoza, 55, armed with a M16 rifle seized the busload of Hong Kong tourists to demand his reinstatement in the force.

According to newspaper reports from 2008, he was among five officers who had been charged with robbery, extortion and grave threats after a Manila hotel chef filed a complaint alleging the policemen falsely accused him of using drugs to extort money.

The gunman released nine hostages during the afternoon -- leaving 15 inside -- and demanded his job back to free the rest. Despite hopes that negotiations might bring the stand-off to a peaceful conclusion, tensions escalated as night closed in.

Police said they stormed the bus after they saw Mendoza open fire on hostages.

Moments before the commandos moved in, the Filipino driver fled. Police officer Roderick Mariano cited him as saying Mendoza had opened fire at the tourists.

Comments

[ryancite]

08:45 AM on 08/27/2010

" I just the call throughout our nation and other nationalities around the world that I came together and provide compassion and fervent prayer in this hostage crisis that occurred in Manila recently. No one likes to occur with such unexpected violence that each of us. I expect the participation of all in the name of our lord god please. "

[Lawrence Sayat]

03:51 AM on 08/27/2010

cguro no wants na mngyari tong incident nkkalungkot lng tlga dpat mngot ung mga cbinet member n p-noy

[Liz Camitan]

05:06 AM on 08/26/2010

My deepest apology to all China National especially to all the families of the victims to what had happened last Monday August 23, 2010 in regards to the Quirino Grandstand, Manila Philippines Hostage Crisis and to all inappropriate images and exposures of the scene. Philippines is one of the countries who made some major mistakes in situation like this. Filipinos are still hoping to mend the ties between countries at this point for it is not intentionally done by the hostage taker to target such race. We are also aware that the situation could have been handled differently by the authorities but unfortunately end up negatively. Filipinos have accepted the significance of this tragedy and are well aware of the circumstances happening worldwide and the effect on our country's reputation. We all know that in time you will find yourself to forgive our country's mistake, and we do understand that whatever retaliation nor reaction to our country and fellow countrymen outside the country working as OCW is just a cause of your anger and frustration on the current situation and we cannot blame anyone for it. Philippines will definitely bring justice to the gruesome tragedy that had happened that day, but we request for everyone's patience for everything takes time. The fault of one cannot be blamed upon all. Filipinos knows the value of peace, justice, sacrifice, respect, honor, trust and hard work. Filipinos will not let go of those values because of this incident.

[RenatoPacifico]

09:41 AM on 08/26/2010

Goodness! THANK YOU FOR ACCEPTING RESPONSIBILITIES OF YOUR COUNTRYMEN. This I can tell you and all Huffingtonposters, If it happened to a fellow Filipino, THERE WILL NOT BE APOLOGIES. It will only be forgotten, swept under the rug.

I ASK YOU THIS, whatever happened to that Tondo torture victim? IT IS GONE NOW, right? IT IS FORGOTTEN! How about the investigation? How is the investigation going? HA!HA!HA!HA!HA! YOU FILIPINOS ARE JUST SO OBLIVIOUS, CLUMSY, CLUELESS!!! You are only good to foreigners. You treat them like 1st class citizen. Like GOD! But among brown-skin-punked-nose filipinos NO ONE APOLOGIZE FOR THEM AND IT IS EASILY FORGOTTEN!!!!

HYPOCRITES!!!!!

[Michael Floren]

05:51 AM on 08/28/2010

don't apologized they killing us in hongkong so that is what we call karma

[RenatoPacifico]

12:35 PM on 08/25/2010

And you know, guys? It is not the Philippine General who ordered the rescue got the boot, IT WAS THAT PATHETIC SKINNY GUY WHO CAN BARELY LIFT THE SLEDGEHAMMER GOT THE BOOT.

Philippine Justice at Work! And where are the Philippines' deep critical political analysts? THEY CANNOT ANALYZE THIS BECAUSE THEIR BRAIN IS ONLY WIRED FOR POLITICS!!! DUH! And they blame me of being Anti-Filipino or Filipino hater. DUH!

[Lucille Perez]

08:36 AM on 08/25/2010

bakit hinaras pati pamilya ni mendoza?? torture again? Pilipinas sana mgbago nman sistema natin.. palagi na lng tau napapahiya sa ibang bansa! so so disappointing.. D:

[RenatoPacifico]

10:14 AM on 08/25/2010

PHILIPPINES IS AN EMBARASSMENT TO ASIA. Vietnam came out of the ashes of their war in mid-70s and now it is neck-and-neck with FilipinoLand. DO I NEED TO SAY MORE?

[Kurtsnoy]

08:03 PM on 08/25/2010

dude..don't generalized what your talking..you don't know anything

[Matt Rutsch]

03:07 AM on 08/25/2010

Embarassing. I have lived here in the Philippines for almost a decade now. This sort of thing does not surprise me at all. I always knew the Philippine National Police was sh*t. The cops here have absolutely no honor, all they care about is to make money by any means necessary. Half of the police force here are either drug addicts hooked on crack (shabu) or alcoholics. What does bother me though, is that other countries will look down on the Philippines because of this incident. They will think that all Filipino's are incompetent, even if that's not the case. Shame on you Philippine National Police. These things are very exact reasons why there are so many Filipino's who want to leave their country and start live elsewhere. I myself am beggining to lose hope in the Philippines.
President Aquino, good luck. You will definitely need it. You have alot of work to do.

And to those who decide to insult innocent Filipino's because of what happened, I hope you come to your senses and stop being ignorant. Save your insults for the people who we're too incompetent in handling the situation properly. The Philippine National Police.

[rachel powers]

02:18 PM on 08/30/2010

matt you are so funny. How stupid are you to generalize the whole Philippine National Police? You don't know a thing to utter such remarkable accusation. You live here for almost a decade now? It is not really obvious for you because you pretend to be mr. witty but the truth is you are just an airhead ready to burst. You do not have any right to mitigate the PNP because you do not know what this people go through everyday. You speak like mr. know it all just to what? Say that you are someone better? You are just a piece of Sh*t to jugde with such shallow level of thinking. This PNP you are referring to lay their lives on the line just to protect this country despite the limited resources they have. Imagine marching towards death without an equal fight. If you blame them then better blame this government with a rotten system. Very corrupt and unsupportive. Spare those policemen who did justice to their work despite its mocking government. The Philippines should stand together not separately. Specially at this time when the world belittles us. Matt i bet if you are a member of the PNP you could have died earlier than the rest because your judgement fails you.

[mark lightworks]

09:09 PM on 08/24/2010

Recently I have worked as an executive in Makati for a couple of years. In general i like the people there.

Outside of Makati, you have to be extra careful Within Makati, you still have people knifed at ATM points. At pasig a lawyer drew a gun and killed a driver. walked to the car and shot a lady passenger who just arrived in the philippines. His cavalier attitude was because he was the district lawyer. Too many of such stories abound. Not trusting the police is common.

Contrast this to Sr Nathan, present president of Singapore, he was a very high ranking internal security team, he took the lead, he and his team exchanged themselves to secure the release of hostages held by the Japan Red Army group in 1974.

[RenatoPacifico]

05:06 PM on 08/24/2010

Will someone post this thread to COMEDY SECTION? See, the bungling rescue is so comical that I just cannot finish the video without me laughing hoarse.

[JUVENTUSER]

05:29 PM on 08/24/2010

Are you Chinese? Anyway, I really appreciate your calm opinion upon this issue. As you know, not just Philippines perform bad to Chinese cause they're jealous of Chinese. Thanks, fanned.

[rachel powers]

02:23 PM on 08/30/2010

How come Filipinos should be jealous of chinese people? Are you superior? I don't think so. It is all in your head with a bottle neck brain. duh!

[TheSuicider]

01:52 PM on 09/01/2010

He is more likely to be a poor filipino leftist who could not control his act of political desperation.

[ryanita]

07:29 AM on 08/24/2010

Grabe talaga ang nangyaring marahasna pangyayari noh!
They made me cry of that BAD NEWS!
Na touch talaga ako kasi naawa talaga ako sa
mga bihag na mga turista. I pray na sana
hindi maapektuhan ang pagbisita ng mga darating pa
na mga turista sa ating bansa. huhuhu :(

[ryanita]

07:34 AM on 08/24/2010

hahai!
GOD HELP US :)

[WYHKTai-Tai]

04:10 AM on 08/24/2010

Terrible. my condolences to the victims' families. We were planning a short trip to the Philippines this fall, but I have a feeling we'll cancel it. I do not want to go there.

[tombollocks]

11:30 AM on 08/24/2010

I just returned from Manila in March, and had a great time. I will be going back in 2011. Manila has +11M people, and I felt completely safe. I won't let this tragedy dim my view of a wonderful place, just like I didn't let the LA riots (Rodney King) keep me from there either. Sadly, bad things happen sometimes.

[anna katrina magbanua]

11:59 PM on 08/27/2010

This is an isolated case. Nobody wants this to happen. The Philippine government are on its work to solve the case with some international partner. You can search for much safer places here, we have 7,107 island. I suggest you go to Boracay, Cebu, Bohol and Davao (main).

[WYHKTai-Tai]

12:15 AM on 08/28/2010

Hong Kong people are up in arms about this incident. The locals especially are really upset, and even the poor domestic helpers are being harassed. The biggest problem is the handling/bungling of it by the police force. They really could not have done this any worse.

I know that crimes happen everywhere, there are nuttters out there in every country, but clearly there is little to no protection, 'should something happen' in the cities. You cannot get to any of these islands without going through Manila. & bottom line, we're pretty spoilt for choice here in SE Asia. I've heard Boracay is particularly beautiful. Maybe next year.

Cheers,

[hiromom]

01:19 AM on 08/24/2010

im a Filipino living here n tokyo. married for 8 yrs to a japanese military officer. he has not travel to my country not even once bacause apparantly d japanese military considers the philippines n its southern cities volatile regions not safe to travel for thier officers( becuz of rampant hostage taking incidents such as these). he says that cities south of manila are considered red zones. my home town is in davao so its always a no go for him. which is a sorry fact because thier are really beautiful n exotic places i would like to take him back home.

[Charlyn Ale]

01:42 AM on 08/24/2010

Yup! the hostage taking happened yesterday was a big tragedy to all victims and their families...

[anna katrina magbanua]

12:05 AM on 08/28/2010

I am from Davao too, although the country has killing incidents, I can say Davao is much safer because our mayor who imposes strict policies and curfews. The media Hypes the negative issues, disregarding the beautiful side of the country. We are not the ONLY country who have security problems. Even USA suffered tragic lose with the twin tower was attacked. You can NEVER predict these kind of tragedy.

[RenatoPacifico]

12:17 AM on 08/24/2010

My comments in ABCNews.com were deleted. All I asked were the following:

1. Philippine journalists who are very good in deep critical analysis in politics fail to see the obvious: a) according to Philippine self-proclaimed "professional" journalists that the shooting started because the hostage taker brought down a sharp shooter: a1) so the hostage-taker shoot the sharp-shooter thru the glass and hit the sharp-shooter! WoW; a2) How close was the sharp-shooter? a3) in the ensuing pandemonium, Philippine sharp-shooter conveniently shot the hostage-taker, listen to this, IN THE HEAD!!!! and killing 7 hostages!

NOW HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE? With all the highly critical deep thinking philippine journalists they report thESE IMPOSSIBILITIES!!! And ABCNews.com deleted my comments!!!

Journalists worldwide are like Muslims. NEVER EVER REDICULE JOURNALISTS!!! BECAUSE FAR AND WIDE THEY WILL DELETE YOUR POSTS REGARDLESS THEIR PROFESSED protection of FREEDOM OF THE PRESS!!!!!

[hoghavemercy]

06:12 PM on 08/30/2010

You pose yourself like an "Uncle Tom" why would you hate your own kind so much, learn to spell "ridicule" before you can become one of us!!

If Hitler were to put a million Filipinos in the gas chamber, he'd pick you!! You're like a movie of the week, people really don't take notice until you do something drastic. Get a life and get off the computer. You're ranting is a cry for help of being alone in this world, POSER...

[Kaye Brigette Cabello]

08:20 PM on 08/23/2010

My condolences to the Chinese tourist and their families..
Police who where in the hijack who than nothing but a bullshit you are disgrace to our country...

[RenatoPacifico]

12:18 AM on 08/24/2010

Chinese government should investigate. Do not ever leave the investigation to PHilippine journalists and philippine investigators .... NEVER EVER!!!! CHINA GOVERNMENT SHOULD DEMAND AND TELL PHILIPPINE GOVERNMENT .....

[HerbTee]

07:11 PM on 08/23/2010

Folks, during one of my visits to the Philippines years ago (2001 or so) around the Christmas season, I remember watching a very strange TV broadcast from the national provincial commanders of the PNP. The commanders had ordered that all PNP officers throughout the country must place signed masking tape over the muzzles of their rifles and pistols to prevent indiscriminate discharge. The local police commanders had to sign the masking tape, then the tape was secured over the muzzles of the weapons.

Apparently at midnight during previous New Years, PNP officers were habitually and indiscriminately discharging their service sidearms and M-16 rifles to ring in the new year. As a result, civilians were being accidentally wounded by ricochets or falling bullets. Ironically, the provincial commanders didn't seem too concern about the potential of wounded civilians. They seemed more concerned about the rising costs of the ammunition being wastefully expended! Needless to say, I was quite shocked and taken aback by such a strange measure. Apparently, too many PNP officers didn't have the professional self-discipline not to fire their service weapons. I cannot say how widespread this problem was, or whether it only affected the provinces rather than the urban cities. However, the measure was apparently important enough to be announced on national TV.

This is one extreme but pathetic example of many other examples which Filipino citizens must deal with erratic behaviors from their national police force., which invariably leads up to today's tragic event.

[darth geekboy]

10:01 PM on 08/23/2010

senseless erratic behaviour from the police is not unique to the phillippines. arizona has an erratic sheriff that's paranoid and afraid of mexicans invading the state.

[HerbTee]

09:36 AM on 08/24/2010

"senseless erratic behaviour from the police is not unique to the phillippines."

When and where did I ever say it was not? Maricopa County (Phoenix), Arizona may have an erratic, despotic sheriff in Joe Arpaio. But Joe Arpaio is only ONE man in ONE county of Arizona. The Sheriffs of other Arizona counties are in stark contradiction with Arpaio's policies on immigration and many other matters! Joe Arpaio does NOT represent the entire state of Arizona nor does he have law enforcement jurisdiction over the entire state either.

Furthermore, Joe Arpaio does not police the entire country as the PNP does in the Philippines nor can Joe Arpaio usurp Federal immigration laws...and a US Federal Court judge has already ruled on that aspect. Although the US does have Federal law enforcement agencies, we do not have a national police force which controls everything and every jurisdiction as the PNP does.

If you're going to make lame excuses for the behaviors of the PNP, at least try a bit harder to make a relevant, intelligent argument.

[RenatoPacifico]

12:20 AM on 08/24/2010

Dang, Herb, if you post the above in ABCNews.com it will be likely deleted. My logical questioning comments were deleted in their website. JOURNALISTS WORLD WIDE ARE LIKE MUSLIMS ... never redicule their own no matter what ..... BECAUSE THEY WILL DELETE YOUR COMMENTS.

[HerbTee]

09:25 AM on 08/24/2010

Hello Renato, I've been meaning to catch up with you....sorry I missed you on several previous posts. I mention this PNP story mainly because of the strangeness of it. Fanned.

[shutterbabe]

04:56 PM on 08/23/2010

I cannot fathom, no matter how many articles I read, the ability of human's (?) to be so unthinkably cruel.

[davemartin7777]

05:27 PM on 08/23/2010

Especially when people are insane for whatever reason.

[RenatoPacifico]

12:22 AM on 08/24/2010

Oh, yeah. Have you seen the cruelty of Philippine policemen to one of their suspects? They tied a string to the victims genital and pulling it while whacking him with belt. Eventuallty he was shot in the jaw and two bullet wounds in the torso.

And the Philippine journalists burried the news after two days whereas the Abu-Ghraib prison torture lingered for years and years in America. philippine journalists are accomplices to these tortures, cruelty and brutality for not telling the truth.