TANAUAN, Philippines (AFP) – Scores of mourners attended the burial Saturday of the sacked policeman who hijacked a bus in Manila, triggering a hostage crisis in which eight Hong Kong tourists were killed.

Even as the government tried to distance itself from the incident, hundreds crowded into a church for the funeral mass of former senior inspector Rolando Mendoza’s home, to remember him for his police honours and not for Monday’s tragic events.

“There are so many mourners because he was a good man. You never heard about him doing anything bad,” said warehouse worker Mark Torres, a family friend attending the vigil in Tanauan, a small city south of Manila.

Francisco Misaba, a district watchman, said he had been assigned to manage the traffic because of the large number of people attending Mendoza’s requiem and burial.

“There will be plenty of people attending because he had a lot of friends. Just about everyone in the district was his friend,” he said.

Mendoza’s family has refused to grant press interviews. But at the vigil, held in Mendoza’s home, they put his numerous citations on display alongside many floral wreaths sent by fellow policemen.

Later, as Mendoza’s body was placed into its grave, his son, Vismark, who is also a police officer, openly wept, sobbing, “I will never see his smile again.”

No officials attended the event and the only uniformed policemen at the funeral was Mendoza’s son but many media outlets, including Hong Kong photojournalists, were present.

Mendoza, a decorated officer who had been sacked over extortion charges, took a bus-load of Hong Kong tourists hostage in Manila on Monday, demanding to be reinstated.

This led to a 12-hour siege of the bus and muddled police negotiations that ended in bloodshed, with Mendoza and eight of the tourists shot dead.

The bungled rescue has enraged Hong Kong and embarrassed the Philippine government, which has called for an investigation.

Further embarrassment came on Friday when the Chinese embassy condemned the draping of Mendoza’s coffin with a Philippine flag as if he was a hero.

The Philippine government said the flag had been placed there by Mendoza’s family and had been later removed by a city official.

Torres said he could not explain Mendoza’s violent actions, adding that he had never heard of any misdeeds committed by the former policeman.

“I don’t think he went insane. He just believed what he was fighting for,” he told AFP.

“I can’t really say that he was justified, because people died. But we can’t say he was totally wrong, either.”

Misaba said: “We don’t understand why he did this. All we know is that he is now dead.”

Presidential spokesman Herminio Coloma said the results of an investigation would soon be presented to Hong Kong authorities.

“We are doing everything to ensure that we have comprehensive, thorough and accurate findings,” he said in an interview on government radio on Saturday.

He said it was too early to say if any of the eight hostages had been killed by gunfire from the police rescue team.

Coloma said he hoped that a planned rally in Hong Kong on Sunday to demand justice for the victims would not affect the estimated 200,000 Filipinos working there, most of them as domestic helpers.

“Hopefully it will not reach that point and that in the coming days the anger will cool down and we can both move on,” he said.

Coloma advised the Filipinos in Hong Kong, who normally gather together in huge numbers on Sunday, their day off, to take precautions in the meantime.

“Probably the best thing to do is be prudent, be careful when talking. They can tell if their physical presence in their gathering places might provoke an untoward incident,” he said.

Filipino union leaders have reported reprisals against the community by Hong Kong employers incensed at the hijacking. — AFP

Fire Officer Domingo Gastilo says the fire broke out late Thursday, possibly when gasoline a man was pouring into a container near an open stove caught alight.

The fire lasted four hours, racing through some 350 shanties in two crowded villages in Navotas city, north of the capital Manila.

Gastilo said Friday two people died. An eight-year-old girl fell to her death from a makeshift bridge as people fled the fire, and another panicked resident jumped into Manila Bay and drowned.

Thousands were displaced by the fire, but it was not immediately clear exactly how many. They are being housed in a city gymnasium and two schools. — AP

Addressing students and teachers at a suburban university, President Benigno Aquino III said the nearly 12-hour hostage-taking drama on Monday was “ghastly” and admitted there were “many failures,” but stopped short of directly blaming the police.

“What happened should not happen again,” he said. “Someone failed, someone will pay.”

At the Senate investigation, Manila police chief Rodolfo Magtibay said he gave the order to assault the bus carrying a Hong Kong tour guide and 20 tourists after hearing shots following a breakdown in the negotiations with the hostage-taker.

The man, a Manila policeman who had been dismissed and was demanding reinstatement, released several children and elderly hostages early on, but later opened fire on the remaining hostages. Eight people were killed before a police sniper took out the gunman.

In Hong Kong, business was halted in the bustling Asian financial center for a three-minute tribute Thursday morning to the slain tourists.

Hong Kong leader Donald Tsang and hundreds of citizens bowed their heads as both the Chinese and Hong Kong flags were raised and then lowered to half-mast in a downtown square. Residents elsewhere in the city also paused to pay their respects.

The daylong standoff between the bus hijacker and police — broadcast live on TV — stunned residents in Hong Kong, a safe, affluent city that rarely sees violent crimes. Locals expressed outrage at the Philippine government’s handling of the situation, with Internet users heaping verbal abuse on Aquino.

Aquino and other officials have promised a full investigation. Interior Secretary Jessie Robredo, who is in charge of the national police, has acknowledged there were problems with how the crisis was handled, including inadequacies in preparation, equipment and training.

Magtibay has taken leave and four leaders of the assault team that eventually stormed the bus have been relieved pending an investigation. Officials have said the firearms used by 200 police commandos will be subjected to ballistic tests to see if some of the hostages were hit by police gunfire.

Magtibay told the senators that he “honestly believed” assurances by his assault team leader that they were prepared and were carrying the right equipment for the operation.

However, Sen. Miguel Zubiri pointed out the police SWAT team did not have ladders or bus window blasters, and the rope they used as a makeshift tool to pry open the vehicle’s door easily snapped.

Another police officer testified that the team did not have a “flash-bang grenade,” a standard weapon used by police commandos to stun a hostage-taker.

“It was Band-Aid solutions as we went along, but the element of surprise had already gone,” Zubiri said. “If you are a foreigner, you will no longer come to visit the Philippines because you have seen in the news that the police are not adequately trained.”

The security committee of Hong Kong’s Legislative Council was scheduled to hold its own hearing on the killings Thursday afternoon.

Meanwhile, gunmen wearing police uniforms stopped a passenger bus in the southern Philippines on Thursday and fatally shot four people, including two police marshals, officials said. The area is home to Muslim rebels and several criminal gangs.

The bus attacked after it was flagged down at a road checkpoint by the gunmen, said Orlando Vinas, the Lanao del Norte provincial police chief. They ordered the passengers to get off and then killed four people, including two uniformed police marshals, the driver and the bus conductor, said Vinas.

The bodies of the eight Hong Kong hostages killed Monday were flown home late Wednesday. Two wounded survivors also returned to continue medical treatment at Hong Kong hospitals.

Another survivor, Jason Leung, identified by Canadian media as a Canadian citizen, remained hospitalized in Manila after surgery on a head wound. Hong Kong’s Acting Secretary for Food and Health Gabriel Leung told reporters late Wednesday that his condition has improved and officials may move him to a Hong Kong hospital as well. — AP

MANILA, Philippines – The U.S. military opposes the use of force by countries locked in a territorial dispute in the South China Sea and will maintain its presence in the strategic region for years to come, an American commander said Wednesday.

China, meanwhile, lashed out at an American report that said Beijing’s secrecy amid its military buildup increased the potential for conflict.

The comments by Adm. Robert Willard, the head of the U.S. Pacific Command, follow remarks last month by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that outraged China. Clinton told a conference of Southeast and East Asian ministers that the U.S. had a “national interest” in seeing the territorial disputes resolved through a “collaborative diplomatic process by all claimants.”

China claims sovereignty over the entire South China Sea, which is strewn with disputed groups of islands, including the Spratly archipelago — also claimed in whole or in part by Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines.

Willard said that Washington does not take sides in the disputes but added it will oppose any use “of force or any forms of coercion to stake these claims on the part of any single nation at the expense of the others.”

He said China’s “assertive” behavior in the South China Sea was on the agenda in annual defense talks in Manila on Wednesday with Philippine military officials.

The two allies, which signed a Mutual Defense Treaty in 1951, also discussed previous plans outlining how the Philippines and the U.S. can protect each another in case conflict breaks out in the disputed region, Willard said without elaborating.

“We discussed the assertiveness that we’re experiencing by the Chinese in the South China Sea and the concerns that that has generated within the region,” he told a news conference.

He said American forces will continue with their presence in the region for years to come to keep its sea lanes and air space safe for the huge traffic of commercial cargo.

Willard also urged the countries in the region to build adequate militaries to help keep the peace.

“It’s very important that the governments in the region invest in sufficient militaries and security apparatus to protect their respective territorial waters,” he said.

“This is about preventing conflict, not allowing any of the circumstances in the region to lead up to a shooting war,” said Willard.

Philippine military chief Lt. Gen. Ricardo David lamented his country’s weak military, which he said could not adequately patrol the Spratly Islands that it claims. With antiquated planes and ships, the Philippine military capability in the disputed areas is “almost negligible,” he said.

The Spratlys are a group of islands, reefs and atolls with rich fishing grounds. The area is believed to have large oil and natural gas reserves and straddles busy sea lanes that are a crucial conduit for oil and other resources fueling China’s fast-expanding economy and those of other Asian nations.

The conflicting claims have occasionally erupted into armed confrontation, although China and the other claimants have sought to resolve differences peacefully and pledged not to take any steps that could lead to clashes under a 2002 code of conduct.

Chinese forces seized the western Paracel Islands from Vietnam in 1974 and sank three Vietnamese naval vessels in a 1988 sea battle.

Washington has monitored the expansion of the Chinese military, the People’s Liberation Army, especially in the last 10 years, Willard said, adding that Asian military officials, along with the United States, should discuss with Beijing their concerns over such a buildup.

A Pentagon report issued this week said secrecy surrounding China’s military buildup increased the potential for misunderstanding and conflict with other countries.

The report said China was developing more advanced weapons systems and pursuing the construction of aircraft carriers and ballistic missiles capable of attacking targets more than 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) away.

China lashed out Wednesday at the report, warning it could further damage ties between their armed forces.

Defense Ministry spokesman Geng Yansheng said the report ignored what he called “objective facts” and urged Washington to stop issuing the annual assessment.

The Pentagon report is “not beneficial to the improvement and development of Sino-U.S. military ties,” Geng was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua News Agency. — AP

Nine people, including a 10-year-old boy, survived and eight were taken to hospitals, said police chief Wilben Mayor of Benguet province north of Manila.

Mayor said most of the victims were pinned to death while others were thrown out as the bus tumbled down.

Working into the night, emergency workers recovered the last of the 41 bodies from the twisted wreckage, said regional disaster agency director Olivia Mercado-Luces.

Twenty-six have been identified so far, including four members of a Filipino-American family who were on their way back to the U.S. after visiting relatives in the northern Philippines. An Indian national living in the Philippines also died.

The victims’ remains, including a toddler’s, were put in body bags on the highway and were later taken to funeral parlors.

The bus zoomed between a tree and a house and plunged into the ravine, Mayor said. The driver, who survived with a broken leg, would be investigated, he said.

John Patrick Flores, the bus conductor, told The Associated Press by telephone that the brakes on the bus failed as the driver was negotiating a downhill curve.

He said the driver was aiming to hit a lamppost to stop the bus from falling but missed and it jumped over a foot (30 centimeters) -high road barrier.

“I jumped off the bus to the side of the road before the bus plunged into the ravine,” Flores said. He suffered only minor bruises.

He said he was the first person to reach the bus and carried the 10-year-old boy with a broken leg up the ravine. Local residents helped rescue other passengers, eight of whom were brought to hospital in Baguio.

The bus was carrying about 50 people from the northern mountain city of Baguio when it crashed in Sablan township, about eight miles (12 kilometers) away.

Flores said the bus was not speeding as it had just dropped off a passenger and picked up another a short distance away from where the vehicle plunged.

Accidents in the area are common because of poorly maintained vehicles. The weather was fine and the highway is in good condition.

Last month, 15 people died when their bus slammed into a concrete barrier in the central Philippines. A month earlier, a bus rented by Iranian medical students fell into a ravine near central Cebu city, killing 21 people. — AP

ZAMBOANGA, Philippines – A Philippine governor who led a military campaign against Muslim militants said Friday he believed he was the target of a bombing at a southern airport that grazed him and killed two other people, including one of the attackers.

About two dozen other people were wounded, one seriously, late Thursday when the blast ripped through the arrival gate as passengers — including Sulu Gov. Sakur Tan — were leaving the Zamboanga city airport.

Police said one of two assailants was carrying the explosives in his backpack, and they were investigating whether they went off prematurely or were triggered remotely. There is no history of suicide bombings in the Philippines, which has grappled with a decadeslong Muslim insurgency in the country’s restive south.

Police did not immediately provide any details about the second suspected attacker.

U.S. Ambassador Harry Thomas, who was supposed to visit Zamboanga on Friday, said he postponed the trip because it would be a burden to security personnel investigating the attack. He offered U.S. assistance in the probe.

“I deplore this heinous crime that victimized ordinary travelers,” Thomas said in a statement. He had been due to fly to the airport.

Zamboanga, a major economic and transport hub on southern Mindanao Island, has been targeted before in bombings by the al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf group, which is notorious for kidnappings and beheadings. It is on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations, and the U.S. military has deployed special forces to the region to help train and arm Filipino troops fighting the militants.

Tan, governor of Sulu island province — an Abu Sayyaf stronghold south of Zamboanga — sustained a small wound near his ribs when the blast went off as he and other passengers disembarked from a plane arriving from Manila, about 540 miles (860 kilometers) north of Zamboanga. He was later discharged from hospital.

“I believe I was the target,” Tan told reporters, saying the device went off just a yard (meter) away from him. “I saw the flash very clearly.”

An enemy of the Abu Sayyaf militants, he has been targeted before. He escaped unharmed when a bomb-rigged motorcycle exploded near his convoy in Sulu in May last year. A town mayor and at least three security escorts were wounded in that attack.

On Friday, Tan suggested his political rivals could be connected to terrorists but did not elaborate. “I have received intelligence reports that I would be bombed again, in Zamboanga or Sulu or Manila. Not only bombed, they may even use a rocket-propelled grenade,” he said.

Newly elected President Benigno Aquino III, facing his first security crisis since assuming office in June, condemned the violence and ordered authorities to bring the perpetrators to justice, said his spokesman, Edwin Lacierda. — AP

Mark Dizon, a 28-year-old computer technician, did not resist when arrested Tuesday while talking with his father in a public square in northern San Fernando city, police Senior Superintendent Danilo Bautista said.

He is accused of killing nine people — six Filipinos, an American, a Canadian and a Briton — in three different robberies at hotels and homes this month in Angeles city. The area, near the former U.S.-run Clark Air Force Base some 50 miles (80 kilometers) northwest of Manila, is home to many retired expatriates.

Dizon, who is from a well-off family and according to police had a fascination with guns, was Facebook friends with the daughter of one of the victims. A friend of her family showed his photo on the popular social networking site to witnesses to help identify him, police said.

“He was fond of computers and this gave him away,” Bautista told The Associated Press.

The string of deadly robberies started July 12, when Canadian Geoffrey Alan Bennun, 60, and his Filipino girlfriend were shot to death after a robber broke into their hotel room.

Four days later, Briton James Bolton Porter, 51, and his girlfriend were killed by a gunman in their house in Angeles’ Malabanas village, police said.

Last week, a gunman killed American Albert Mitchell, a 70-year-old World War II veteran of the U.S. Air Force, along with his Filipino wife, Janet, 53, and three Filipino staff inside their Angeles home, Bautista said.

In the last killing, the fleeing gunman was seen by a village guard and a motorcycle taxi driver, who later described him to investigators, according to police.

After hearing descriptions of the suspect, a family friend of the Mitchells looked up Dizon’s Facebook page — the Mitchells’ daughter was one of his friends on the site. He showed the Facebook profile photo to the witnesses, who identified him as the man fleeing they saw, Bautista said.

He added that the same pistol was used in all the killings, linking Dizon to the other two crimes. — AP

MANILA, Philippines – Members of the clan suspected in one of the worst massacres in Philippine history are believed to be behind the weekend shooting death of an aide for a key witness to the mass killings, officials said Monday.

The attack Sunday appeared to be the latest case of harassment and intimidation of witnesses in the Nov. 23 ambush that killed 57 people, 30 of them journalists and their staff who were accompanying supporters of a gubernatorial candidate.

Gunmen strafed the center of a southern township, killing an aide to Vice Mayor Rasul Sangki, who runs the town, and wounding two other people, according to Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu.

Sangki has testified against the main suspects, including members of the Ampatuan clan who controlled Maguindanao province at the time of the killings. He told the court in January that Andal Ampatuan Jr., a former vice mayor, led a group of more than 100 local police and militiamen who stopped the campaign convoy, shot dead the victims and buried them in mass graves.

Ampatuan, nine police officers and two militiamen have denied the charges against them. They are among 198 people charged with multiple murders in the largest criminal case since the country’s World War II prosecutions.

Justice Secretary Leila De Lima said Sunday’s attack was carried out by gunmen who included members of the Ampatuan family.

“A group of armed men, including some Ampatuans — grandsons, nephews or uncles — attacked a place where some witnesses are supposed to be housed,” she said.

Army troops backed by armored vehicles moved in to prevent an escalation of violence, said army spokesman Lt. Col. Benjie Hao. They also secured about 25 civilians who were hiding in a warehouse after they were caught in the clashes, he said.

The administration of newly elected President Benigno Aquino III has promised justice for the massacre victims. The Ampatuans were allied with former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who stepped down last month, and there were accusations of political interference in the trial and allegations that witnesses have been offered bribes not to testify.

One man who came forward to testify was gunned down last month before he could be evaluated by government prosecutors. — AP

In a candid interview with AFP, Tourism Secretary Alberto Lim suggested it was time tourists visited equally beautiful beaches in the country other than Boracay, which the government said drew 650,000 tourists last year.

“If you go to Boracay you’d love the beach, you’d love the night life and the good restaurants. But it’s so dense, it’s so dense,” Lim said.

“It is now, you know, too commercial. It’s become Phuket,” he said, referring to the much larger Thai beach resort island.

Lim, who joined President Benigno Aquino’s cabinet when it took power on June 30, said the 10.3 square-kilometre (four square-mile) central Philippine island of Boracay was a different place a generation ago.

The sprawl that followed the tourist dollars caused the seawater off the four-kilometre (2.5 mile) white-sand beachfront to sprout algae, which was fed by sewage from the hotels and restaurants, he said.

“Thirty years ago they tried to set the rules but they were not successful. The local government did not cooperate… so people started overbuilding,” Lim said.

“Of course, bad sewage — that’s why (you are seeing) algae at certain times of the year. It’s green. It’s the result of the sewage seeping out.

“The algae there is not yucky, it’s moss. Maybe fish eat it. But it’s an indication that there’s a problem below the surface.”

Asked if the problem, which first made world headlines in the mid-1990s, had been solved, Lim said: “I’m not sure. I don’t think so, that’s why at certain times of the year the algae forms.”

Lim said environmental and zoning regulations were not being enforced, leading to structures even being built inside the high-water mark.

“And they continue to build. They’re building huge hotels in the mountains.”

Lim suggested the government may in the end be unable to halt over development.

“We have world-class laws but nobody follows them,” he said, adding tourists may just have to look elsewhere.

“The thing about Boracay is the quality of the sand, (it is) very white. But there are other places that have better quality sand, but (they are) very expensive,” Lim said. — AFP

Marine Capt. Nicanor Faeldon was accused of helping lead 300 soldiers in taking over the upscale Oakwood Hotel and a nearby shopping center in Manila in July 2003 and of fleeing a courtroom in 2007 while on trial. They were seeking the resignation of former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who was dogged by accusations she stole an election.

“There is no reason for me to stay unaccountable now because we have a new government which has the mandate of the people,” Faeldon told reporters after being taken into military custody.

“I cannot choose my own commander in chief. But in the case of the previous president, I am one of those who believe she doesn’t possess the mandate of the people,” he said.

Faeldon and his co-accused have said they did not plan to stage coups and were simply protesting Arroyo’s policies. They are facing charges of mutiny and coup attempt.

President Benigno Aquino III welcomed Faeldon’s decision to surrender and promised him a fair trial, presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said.

Faeldon and other mutinous officers fled their trial in November 2007, marching out of the courtroom and taking over a nearby five-star Manila hotel to press their demand for Arroyo’s resignation. Faeldon later went into hiding.

Faeldon and the others were on trial in connection with a previous coup attempt in July 2003. The rebels denounced corruption in the government and the armed forces and withdrew support from Arroyo, calling her a “bogus president.”

Authorities mounted a nationwide manhunt for Faeldon, offering a $22,000 (1 million pesos) reward for his capture. He taunted his pursuers by posting a video on his website showing him inside some military camps.

The coup attempts highlighted the Philippines’ political instability and restiveness in the 120,000-member military, one of Asia’s weakest, which has struggled to modernize and retrain its troops fighting multiple insurgencies despite funding shortfalls.

Arroyo was accused of vote rigging in the 2004 election as well as corruption and favoritism, allegations that stoked political and military unrest during her nine years in office. Her term ended June 30 and she has denied any wrongdoing.

Aquino has promised to form a commission to investigate her.

Of the original 300, nine officers were convicted and sentenced in 2008 to prison terms of 12 to 40 years. They later apologized to Arroyo and were pardoned. But six others refused to say they were sorry and five of them are still being detained.

Most of the others have been discharged and some have returned to service. — AP