Enjoy Philippines Criticized Over Hostage Standoff

Forensic examiners looked for evidence inside the tourist bus in Manila on Tuesday.
MANILA — In the face of growing Chinese anger, Philippine officials acknowledged failings in how the police handled a 12-hour hostage standoff on a tourist bus, which unfolded on live television and ended with the deaths of eight passengers from Hong Kong and the armed captor, a former police officer.


The growing criticism of the police response underscored what may be an early test for President Benigno S. Aquino III, who was elected in a landslide this spring. Chinese officials said they were appalled by the killings, and the chief executive of Hong Kong, Donald Tsang, complained that he had been unable to reach Mr. Aquino throughout the crisis.
Relatives of slain tourists on Tuesday at the scene of a hostage standoff in Manila, a day after eight bus passengers were killed.
In Beijing, Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said the government demanded a “thorough investigation” and full disclosure of the results as soon as possible.

Philippines Criticized Over Hostage Standoff
In Hong Kong, flags flew at half-staff on Tuesday, and protesters gathered outside the Philippine Consulate near the downtown financial center. Much of the fiercest criticism was focused on the length of time the police allowed the situation to continue before raiding the bus, and the extensive live news coverage, which the gunman was able to watch on a monitor inside the bus, robbing the police of any element of surprise.

“It was the mishandling of the situation that caused this to happen,” Alberto Lim, the Philippine secretary of tourism, acknowledged in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “It is really tragic for the country as a whole.”

The Philippine interior secretary, Jesse Robredo, told the newspaper The Inquirer that the authorities and the Philippine National Police, or P.N.P., shared responsibility for the failings.

“We should be very forthright,” Mr. Robredo said. “We — not only P.N.P., it’s everyone involved in the incident — recognize that we lack equipment. We could have been better trained, better equipped, and there should have been better response.”

A police spokesman, Senior Superintendent Agrimero Cruz, also admitted that the force was inadequately trained and equipped, and said that relations with the news media had broken down, according to the

Coppied by http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/world/asia/25phils.html