Thursday 31 October 2013
Manila Mayor Aims to Ease Tensions With Hong Kong
A former Philippine president, Joseph Estrada, now the mayor of Manila, hopes to accomplish in the next few weeks what the national government has failed to do in three years: mend strained ties with Hong Kong over a botched hostage rescue attempt in which eight tourists were killed.
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Manila Mayor Aims to Ease Tensions With Hong Kong
FLOYD WHALEY
31 October 2013
A former Philippine president, Joseph Estrada, now the mayor of Manila, hopes to accomplish in the next few weeks what the national government has failed to do in three years: mend strained ties with Hong Kong over a botched hostage rescue attempt in which eight tourists were killed.
Tensions have reached a boiling point recently, with some in Hong Kong urging new restrictions on the tens of thousands of Filipino housekeepers in the city as they demand an official apology from the Philippines over the deaths.
Mr. Estrada plans to travel to Hong Kong in the next few weeks to apologize in person for the events on Aug. 23, 2010, in which a dismissed Manila police officer took a bus full of Hong Kong tourists hostage, eventually killing eight and wounding seven more before being killed by the police.
“If I can meet with the families, I will apologize personally,” Mr. Estrada said in an interview in his office in Manila City Hall.
But Mr. Estrada’s offer may not be enough: The Philippine president, Benigno S. Aquino III, said Wednesday that no formal national apology would be issued, as demanded by some of the victims’ familes. The issue has cast a serious pall over relations between the city and the Philippines, whose economies are closely intertwined, and it comes as Beijing, which oversees Hong Kong, has been involved in cat-and-mouse naval games with the Philippines over contested islands in the South China Sea.
A Philippine government investigation of the bus shooting found gross negligence on the part of the police and city officials who oversaw the negotiations and eventual assault on the bus during the 10-hour standoff. The report found evidence that in the midst of delicate hostage negotiations, Alfredo S. Lim, the Manila mayor at the time, ordered the summary execution of the hostage taker’s brother – a fellow police officer who had been acting as an informal hostage negotiator.
Shortly afterward, Mr. Lim left the scene of the crisis and went to dinner with the senior ground commander.
“This is already just a waiting game,” the report quotes Mr. Lim as saying. “Let’s just wait. Maybe if he gets tired, lacks sleep, he will just give way.”
Broadcast live, and monitored on a television set inside the bus, the gunman watched as his brother was dragged away by the police, pleading for them to not execute him. Government investigators found that the shooting of the hostages was in part the result of the apparent imminent execution by the police of the gunman’s brother.
The gunman then fired on the hostages, shooting two in the head, one through the spinal cord and others in the heart and lungs, according to the report.
“This is our society, this is our culture, these are Filipinos at their worst,” the report stated.
In the aftermath of the killings, the government of Hong Kong, with the support of the Chinese central government, expressed outrage at the handling of the events by the police and the local authorities. Hong Kong officials called for a formal apology, compensation for the victims’ families and criminal charges to be filed against the authorities who botched the negotiations and rescue.
The Hong Kong Security Bureau subsequently issued a “black” travel advisory against the Philippines, meaning that its residents should “avoid all travel” to the country. The Philippines shares this status with Syria and Egypt.
More than a dozen government officials have been charged administratively or criminally with mishandling the crisis, but the Philippine government has not made a formal apology or offered compensation.
On Tuesday, the Manila City Council passed a resolution that called the response to the hostage crisis a “bungled operation” and offered a formal apology from the city government to the victims’ families, and the people and government of Hong Kong. The resolution also authorized Mr. Estrada to visit Hong Kong as mayor and deliver the apology in person.
A day later, Mr. Aquino reiterated the national government’s position. “At the end of the day, we submit that the act of one individual should not be construed as the act of the entire nation,” he told reporters. “When I, as president, apologize, then I’m apologizing on behalf of the entire country, and I don’t think that is appropriate at this point in time.”
On Thursday, the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs said that the national government would not prevent Mr. Estrada from delivering an apology from the city of Manila. “I think former President Estrada, as mayor, is acting on his own,” said the foreign affairs secretary, Albert del Rosario.
Mr. Estrada, during an interview at his office on Wednesday, said he had not spoken directly to anyone in the Aquino administration about his initiative.
“I am apologizing on behalf the city of Manila,” he said. “The national government has nothing to do with this.”
The furor has alarmed members of Manila’s Chinese business community, and Mr. Estrada said that he would work to raise money among them to compensate family members.
“I’m not ashamed to ask for donations,” he said. “It’s for the good of the city.”
He also said he would seek to assure the people of Hong Kong that the Philippines is safe for tourists and that they are welcome to return.
“I’m 98 percent sure that tourists will be safe here in Manila,” he said.
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