The Manila hostage crisis, officially known as the Rizal Park hostage-taking incident (Tagalog: Pagbibihag ng bus sa Maynila), took place in Rizal Park, Manila, Philippines, on August 23, 2010. A tourist bus carrying 25 people, consisting of 21 Hong Kongers and four Filipinos, was hijacked by 55-year-old Rolando Mendoza, a former officer of the Philippine National Police. Mendoza claimed that he had been unfairly dismissed from his job, and demanded a fair hearing to defend himself.
Negotiations (which were broadcast live on television and the internet) led to the release of nine hostages, but broke down dramatically about ten hours into the stand-off, when the police arrested Mendoza's brother, who had been brought to the site as part of negotiations, for carrying a gun and thus incited Mendoza to open fire, killing eight hostages. The bus driver managed to escape, and declared "Everyone is dead" (patay na lahat) before he was moved away by policemen. Minutes later, police stormed the bus through a broken back window and fatally shot Mendoza.
The Philippine and Hong Kong governments conducted separate investigations into the incident. Both inquiries concluded that the Philippine officials' poor handling of the situation caused the eight hostages' deaths. The assault mounted by the Manila Police District (MPD), and the resulting shoot-out, have been widely criticized by pundits as "bungled" and "incompetent", and the Hong Kong Government has issued a "black" travel alert for the Philippines as a result of the incident.
Several of Mendoza's family members and Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada apologized to Hong Kong for the incident, while President Benigno Aquino III "begged for understanding" from Hong Kong. President Aquino, however, would decide against issuing a formal apology to Hong Kong or China due to the incident being "the act of one individual", which should "not be construed as the act of the entire country". On April 12, 2018, Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte publicly apologized for the incident on behalf of his country.
Hijacking
Boarding
On the morning of August 23, 2010, Mendoza attempted to board a Hong Thai Travel Services tour bus as it was taking on riders. Mendoza requested a free ride, and when he was declined by the driver, Mendoza brandished a weapon, handcuffed the driver to the steering wheel and hijacked the bus. There are conflicting reports as to whether Mendoza boarded in front of Quirino Grandstand at Rizal Park, or at Fort Santiago; a number of witnesses saw a man answering Mendoza's description boarding the bus at the latter location.
Mendoza, armed with a handgun and an M16 rifle, commandeered the tour bus, demanded reinstatement to his previous post with benefits, and claimed he was framed. Alfredo Lim, Mayor of Manila, said he would grant Mendoza's wish to be reinstated if he could prove his case.
Masa Tse Ting-chunn, the bus's tour guide, immediately called his agency in Hong Kong shortly after 10:30 am. During the two-minute conversation, Tse calmly informed the customer services manager that his group was being held hostage. Initial media reports were confusing and contradictory; the suspect was alternatively identified as "Ronaldo", "Rolando" and "Reynaldo"; and the hostages aboard were initially reported to be South Koreans before they were confirmed to be mostly from Hong Kong.
Negotiations
Almost an hour later, six Hong Kong tourists were freed: an elderly couple, a woman with two young children, and a 12-year-old boy. Two Filipino photographers boarded the bus as volunteer hostages in exchange for the releases.
By noon, three additional hostages, including the Filipino tour guide and the two photographers who volunteered to be taken hostage, had also been released. TV5 news anchor Erwin Tulfo remained in contact with Mendoza, while superintendent Orlando Yebra and chief inspector Romeo Salvador led negotiations. Seventeen people remained on the bus. By this time, television channels all over the world were interrupting their programs with non-stop live coverage of the hostage situation. Philippine television stations ABS-CBN, GMA, TV5 and government-run NBN (now PTV), as well as Hong Kong television station TVB, and television news channels RT, Al Jazeera, France 24, BBC World News, MSNBC, Fox News Channel, and CNN, all provided live coverage. However, because the news networks were filming police activity, and the bus was equipped with a television, the gunman was able to watch the police action and determine the locations of snipers. At around 2 pm, Mendoza posted several notes on the windows, which read "A big mistake to correct. A big wrong decision", "Big deal will start after 3:00 pm today" and "3:00 pm Today deadlock".
Shortly after sundown, the Office of the Ombudsman denied Mendoza's request to be reinstated to the police force, but assured him that his case would be reopened. Manila Vice-Mayor Isko Moreno delivered the Ombudsman's letter to the hostage scene. Mendoza called the Ombudsman's decision "garbage", claiming that it did not answer his demands. Mayor Lim later claimed on local radio that authorities had agreed to reinstate Mendoza to bring an end to the crisis, but had not been able to deliver the message due to bad traffic congestion.
When the Manila Police District (MPD) SWAT team arrived, Mendoza declared in a radio interview with DZXL that he would kill the passengers if the SWAT team did not leave. His brother, SPO2 Gregorio Mendoza, walked out after trying to negotiate with him. He urged Mendoza to surrender peacefully, saying, "Nothing [bad] will happen here." Gregorio Mendoza was then arrested for breaching the exclusion zone while carrying a gun, as he did not have the MPD's approval to assist in the negotiations. President Aquino later said that the gunman's brother had contributed to the deterioration of the situation by fanning Mendoza's hatred of the negotiators.
Assault
Mendoza became agitated when he witnessed live coverage of his brother's arrest from the bus television. Reports indicated that Mendoza fired warning shots as he saw his brother being carried away. Mendoza demanded that the police release his brother, or else he would start executing hostages, and a few minutes later claimed on live radio that he had, indeed, already shot two hostages.
The first shots fired from within the bus were heard at about 7:21 pm. At around the same time, it was reported that snipers had shot the tires immobilizing the bus after it had attempted to move. Mendoza first killed Masa Tse, the tour leader whom he had handcuffed to the door handrail earlier. According to survivor Joe Chan Kwok-chu, several hostages tried to rush Mendoza as he was preparing to shoot the other hostages, but he shot them down before they could reach him.
At around 7:30 pm, bus driver Alberto Lubang escaped the bus. Thinking that all remaining hostages had died, Lubang cried "Patay na lahat...!" ("Everyone is dead...!") to the policemen and media. He later admitted that his assumption was based on witnessing Mendoza shoot three hostages and firing additional shots at others.
Mendoza then began shooting the rest of the hostages one by one, aiming at their heads. Amy Leung Ng Yau-woon told of how her husband Ken Leung Kam-wing shielded her with his body and saved her from harm while sacrificing his own life. Similarly, their daughter Jessie Leung Song-yi took two bullets while protecting her older brother, and died as a result. Passenger Joe Chan shielded himself from Mendoza's gunfire with his backpack and survived, but both of his wrists were shattered. Chan's traveling companion was seriously injured by a gunshot to her chin.
The SWAT team started to surround the bus at 7:37 pm. The team failed to enter the bus for nearly an hour. Initial attempts to break the shatter-resistant Plexiglass windows with a sledgehammer failed. At 7:45 pm, a rope was tied to the front doors of the bus, which snapped when they attempted to pull the door open.
After running out of choices, they threw two canisters of tear gas inside and Mendoza stepped out of the bus. Snipers, who had taken positions earlier in the day, ultimately shot Mendoza in the head as he went to exit the bus, killing him instantly and causing his body to hang part way out the window of the bus door. By that time, as a thunderstorm dumped rain on the area, however, four more hostages were confirmed dead, while only six hostages were confirmed alive and not seriously injured. Two other people outside the bus – 47-year-old TVB news crew engineer Wen Ming, and child bystander Mike Campanero Ladrillo – were wounded by stray bullets.
Victims
Six of the surviving hostages were taken to Ospital ng Maynila Medical Center, where two later died; two were taken to the Philippine General Hospital; the remaining seven hostages were taken to Manila Doctors Hospital. There were eight fatalities in total. The 13 survivors had injuries which ranged from minor to substantial.
Because the bus driver Alberto Lubang had escaped the bus minutes before the situation deteriorated, despite his claim that he had been handcuffed to the steering wheel, suspicions arose that he was in fact the gunman's accomplice, which Lubang denied. He claimed to have unlocked his handcuffs using nail cutters. However, on August 27, 2010, Lubang and his family were reported missing and had fled their home, possibly going into hiding. Yet, on September 7, 2010, he was reported to be present at a hearing of the investigative committee.
The list of the eight identified victims included Masa Tse Ting Chunn (謝廷駿), Ken Leung Kam-wing (梁錦榮), his two daughters Doris Leung Chung-see (梁頌詩), 21, and Jessie Leung Song-yi (梁頌儀), 14 (his son Jason Leung Song-xue (梁頌學) was seriously injured) Wong Tze-lam (汪子林) and his wife Yeung Yee-wa (楊綺華) and her sister Yeung Yee-kam (楊綺琴); and Fu Cheuk-yan (傅卓仁).
Perpetrator
Rolando del Rosario Mendoza (January 10, 1955 – August 23, 2010) was born in Naic, Cavite, but resided in Banadero in Tanauan, Batangas. He graduated from the Philippine College of Criminology with a degree in criminology, joined the Integrated National Police (INP) as a patrolman in April 1981. He was decorated 17 times for bravery and honor, and was described by colleagues as hard-working and kind. In February 1986, Mendoza led a group of policemen that accosted a van carrying 13 crates full of money, which former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos was apparently trying to smuggle out of the country. Mendoza and his team turned the shipment over to authorities, for which he was declared one of the Ten Outstanding Policemen of the Philippines by the Jaycees International that year. By 1991, when the INP became the Philippine National Police, Mendoza had reached the rank of Senior Police Officer 3 in the Western Police District in Manila. In 2005, Mendoza was promoted to Senior Inspector. He was married to Aurora Mendoza and had three children. At the time of the hijacking, one of Mendoza's sons, Bismark, was serving as deputy chief of Bangued police.
On April 9, 2008, hotel chef Christian Kalaw alleged that he was accosted by Mendoza and several other officers. According to Kalaw, the officers had initially approached him over a supposed parking violation before accusing him of being a drug addict and attempting to extort ₱20,000 from his bank's ATM. Kalaw alleged that when he told the policemen that he did not have the money, he was beaten, threatened at gunpoint and forced to ingest methamphetamine, telling Kalaw that he had to pay ₱200,000 or else they would file drug charges against him, with the methamphetamine in his system as proof. Kalaw said the policemen released him after a friend raised ₱20,000 on his behalf. The Office of the Ombudsman found Mendoza and four others guilty of misconduct, and ordered Mendoza's dismissal from the service and the voiding of all his benefits.
In late April 2008, he was relieved as Chief of the Mobile Patrol Unit. In August 2008, the Eighth Division of the Manila Prosecutors' Office vacated the case after Kalaw failed to attend the dismissal proceedings. In October 2008, spending an unofficial 90-day suspension in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, the PNP Internal Affairs Service recommended the case be dropped. Mendoza was later dismissed from the police force in February 2009 on charges of extortion. Mendoza's brothers, Gregorio and Florencio, later stated that all his brother wanted was a fair hearing by the Ombudsman, who "never even gave him a chance to defend himself; they [just] immediately dismissed him."
There were later reports that Mendoza was also charged with participation in a 1996 gang rape that took place at Quirino Grandstand, near the later hijacking site, but the case was dismissed when the complainants did not show up in court.
Aftermath
Mendoza was buried in a public ceremony in Tanauan on August 29, 2010, wearing his police uniform, with the coffin draped in the Philippine flag, which drew criticism by the Chinese embassy in Manila.
Donald Tsang, Chief Executive of Hong Kong, offered for the eight victims to be buried in the Tribute Garden (景仰園), a part of Wo Hop Shek Public Cemetery designated for Hongkongers who showed extraordinary acts of bravery to save others. Fu and the three members of the Wong family accepted the offer and were buried at Tribute Garden. On July 1, 2011, Masa Tse, Fu Cheuk-yan and Ken Leung Kam-wing were all posthumously awarded the gold medal for Bravery by the Hong Kong government. Mendoza's parents apologized and begged forgiveness from the Hong Kong government for their son's actions.