/ 28 March 2007

Gunmen seize school bus in Manila, 31 children held

Two armed men took over a bus in the Philippine capital Manila on Wednesday and were holding 31 nursery school children and two teachers hostage, apparently to highlight corruption in the country.

The gunmen, believed to be armed with grenades, an Uzi submachine gun and a revolver, freed one child who was running a fever in a three-hour stand-off.

One of the hostage-takers said he would surrender if he was promised that 145 children at a day care centre in the Tondo suburb were provided with education, television reports said.

He also demanded to be allowed to speak on television and he was handed a cellphone patched on to local networks.

”I am so sorry I took these children in a violent action to call the attention of the Filipino people to open their minds to the political reality,” said the man, who said his name was Jun Ducat.

”There’s so much corruption in the country. We’re number one in Asia in corruption,” he said in a speech which lasted for at least 15 minutes.

”I am calling on the Filipino people to stop the rotten political system. Don’t rely on the politicians for your future. No one can help you but yourselves.”

Ducat and at least one other man seized a bus carrying children from the day care centre and parked it near Manila City Hall, in the centre of the city of 12-million people.

The children, between the ages of four and six, were being taken on a tour of Manila and a nearby town. Although the drama dragged on for hours and the bus was parked in the open under a harsh sun, they did not seem to be in discomfort.

Television showed the children waving when curtains on the bus windows were pulled aside.

Scores of elite police surrounded the vehicle and held negotiations while thousands of people watched from a distance.

A local politician, Senator Ramon Revilla, entered the bus to talk with the gunmen, and returned around 30 minutes later with hopes but no signs of progress.

”He has some demands and I already gave him an assurance that I would guarantee the education of the children,” Revilla told reporters.

”He has requested more time and he would come out with the children. I am asking the police not to make any move that would agitate him.”

Ducat was probably the man of the same name who took two priests hostage in the late 1980s after a dispute over building a church, television reports said. In that incident, the weapons used turned out later to be fake and no one was harmed. – Reuters