Puno says hostage incident was a terrorist act

By Ronron
March 29, 2007

Interior and Local Government Secretary Ronaldo Puno described Wednesday’s hostage taking incident in Manila City as an act of terrorism.

In a press conference yesterday at Camp Crame, Quezon City, Puno said the 10-hour crisis is the “first occurrence of a hostage situation which we consider a terrorist act since the passage of the anti-terrorism law.”

Terrorism under the Human Security Act of 2007 includes “kidnapping and serious illegal detention,” among other crimes, coupled with the elements of “widespread and extraordinary fear and panic among the populace, in order to force the government to give in to an unlawful demand.”

It was signed into law by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo early this month.

Wednesday’s incident had 26 pupils and three children as hostage victims of a 56-year-old businessman who was complaining against corruption in the government that is causing other problems in the country like lack of access to quality education and housing.

But since the anti-terror law will only be in effect on July 14, 2007, the police only filed serious illegal detention and illegal possession of firearms against the main suspect, Armando Ducat, Jr., and his companion, Cesar Carbonell, 39, before the Manila City Prosecutor’s Office on Thursday night.

“We would like to serve notice to everybody that even if you get Robinhood and couch him in priestly robes, when he holds a grenade and keeps hostage children, he automatically becomes a terrorist. And we are going to deal with him as a criminal. He is a criminal not matter what his intentions are,” Puno said of Ducat.

He also called Ducat’s concerns as “crazy demands.”

“These two individuals should not be praised. They are the scum of the society because they held hostage an entire society,” Puno said./DMS