Two police officers sacked for mishandling hostage crisis in Manila City

By Ronron
March 29, 2007

The acting director of Manila Police District (MPD) and the commander of the police station where Wednesday’s hostage drama happened will be sacked from their posts for alleged mishandling of the incident.

Secretary Ronaldo Puno of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) told a press conference yesterday in Camp Crame that he has recommended the administrative relief of Sr. Supt. Danilo Abarsoza as acting MPD Director and Supt. Rogelio Rosales as MPD Station 5 Commander until the investigation on the incident is completed.

According to Puno, it appeared that the two police officers were not taking orders from the supposed crisis committee head, Manila City Mayor Lito Atienza, when they were handling the 10-hour hostage taking of 26 pupils and three teachers along Padre Burgos Avenue in Manila City.

Instead, they “practically surrendered the entire thing to everybody else.” The Secretary did not elaborate, however.

During the incident, the first ground commander identified was Abarsoza. But when National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) chief Director Reynaldo Varilla arrived past 10 am, he took over.

Varilla would later be seen constantly conferring with Senator Ramon “Bong” Revilla, Jr., the first to negotiate with hostage taker Armando Ducat, Jr..

But Puno spared Varilla from any liability for the moment, saying he was following his orders to the letter.

“Unfortunately, by the time we started talking, a lot of things were already underway. But I cannot disclose all the instructions I gave to him,” Puno said.

The Secretary said Varilla virtually became the crisis manager, instead of Atienza, contrary to the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP).

“It is the responsibility of the ground commander of the Philippine National Police to report to the person in charge. And the person in charge, according to the Peace and Order Council structures, is the crisis management committee head, the Mayor. And it is the obligation of the ground commander to take his directions from the Mayor who has operational supervision over him,” Puno explained.

“The ground commander should have gone through channels, cleared with his superiors and made sure that this was something that was comfortable within the guidelines for the situation,” he added.

Puno criticized Atienza for looking “like he was besieged by everybody else.” He surmised that the Mayor must have been embarrassed by the incident, he did not want to flash his face in front of everybody.

Puno said that in delicate situations such as last Wednesday, the authorities should strictly follow the SOP.

“As an example, you know I think that people were moving in too close to the crisis area and if anything unfortunate or untoward happened, then the casualties might have been larger than they needed to be,” Puno said.

He said that he already asked PNP chief Gen. Oscar Calderon to form an investigative group to be headed by Deputy Chief for Administration Deputy Director General Avelino Razon, Jr.

The probe will “define the rules covering such situations, “identify rules that were violated,” “who violated these rules,” and what sanction will be imposed for “all of those PNP personnel who did not follow strictly the rules that govern this situation.”

Puno said he also directed the PNP leadership to “disseminate these rules on how these things are handled so that you will not wonder why there is a perimeter, for example.”

Puno admitted he was “incensed” with the way the incident was handled because the authorities present at the site were expected to be aware already of the SOP./DMS