Aquino on 'friendly fire' issue: Let's wait for final report

President Benigno Simeon "Noynoy" Aquino III kept mum on Justice Secretary Leila de Lima's statement that friendly fire might have killed some of the eight Hong Kong tourists during the August 23 hostage crisis at the Quirino Grandstand in Manila. "The emphasis has to be on the 'might.' Let us not jump to conclusions," Aquino told reporters in an ambush interview after a Navy counter-terror demonstration in Cavite on Friday. On Thursday, De Lima said "there is always a possibility" that Mendoza may not have fired the shots that ultimately killed some of the hostages. However, Aquino said he will wait for the final report before making any comment about what occurred that day. "They (IIRC) promised the report by Wednesday, let's wait for the Wednesday report," Aquino said. "I-determine na kaya muna before we comment on something that might or might not have happened." Aquino created the De Lima-led Incident Investigation and Review Committee (IIRC) to find out what happened during the 11-hour hostage drama. On August 23, dismissed Senior Inspector Rolando Mendoza seized a bus carrying 21 tourists from Hong Kong and four Filipinos. He was demanding for his reinstatement into the police service and the dismissal of a pending case against him in the Office of the Ombudsman. Vice-President Jejomar Binay will lead a high-level delegation that will present the report to the Chinese and Hong Kong governments once the probe is concluded. Lapses The Aquino administration's handling of the hostage crisis has been criticized both here and abroad. Aquino himself said there were lapses in the way the police handled the situation, such as the deployment of Manila police's Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) unit to conduct the assault instead of the supposedly more capable Special Action Forces. Both government officials and analysts have pointed out that the responding forces' poor equipment and lack of training were part of the reasons why the police were not able to save the 15 hostages at the time. Mendoza earlier freed nine hostages while bus driver Alberto Lubang was able to escape. Aquino, whose office is conducting a review of police equipment, said he expects to get "wish lists" for better equipment from the SAF, the Philippine Navy, the Philippine Army, and other arms of the police and the military after the hostage incident. "A lot of these items are not impossible to get and they should be given the necessary tools," the president said, adding that troops should not be sent to battle without the proper equipment. Equipment needed In an interview during the Navy demonstration in Cavite, Navy spokesman Marine Lt. Col. Edgard Arevalo said among the equipment the Navy needs to acquire are night-time equipment and rigid hull inflatable boats. Arevalo said in a text message that they held the demo to show Aquino, their commander-in-chief, the abilities of the Navy so that he would know the options are available to him during crisis situations. "By such appraisal, we made the commander-in-chief aware that he has the control, so to speak of the buttons that represent all the AFP's elite units available at his disposal--it's just a matter of him knowing which button to press to address any given emergency situation," Arevalo said. Aquino appeared pleased with the Navy's demo, saying it showed "how capable our people are." He said authorities are now fine-tuning the command structure of an"elite strike force" composed of police and military units that will deal with future hostage-taking incidents and other crises. — RSJ/VVP, GMANews.TV