Palace: Not enough evidence to hold Puno liable for Aug 23 tragedy

Malacañang said Interior Undersecretary Rico Puno was not held liable for the alleged mishandling of the August 23 hostage tragedy because the incident was treated as a local crisis. In an interview on ANC channel's "Headstart" on Tuesday, Presidential Legal Counsel Ed de Mesa said "there was nothing we could attribute to Puno. He wasn't with [the] Crisis Committee, all he did was relay to [the] President." De Mesa said President Benigno Simeon Aquino III instructed them "to look carefully for anything that could justify charging Puno with anything. But we weren't able to find any." On former Philippine National Police chief, Director General Jesus Verzosa, De Mesa said he was also not held liable because he was not the immediate superior of the policemen who handled the crisis. On Monday, Aquino disclosed that the Palace legal advisers recommended that charges be filed against several police officials including Manila Police District (MPD) Chief Superintendent Rodolfo Magtibay, the on-scene commander during the crisis, for "gross incompetence and serious neglect of duty." On the other hand, that the administration chose not to follow the recommendation of the Incident Investigation and Review Committee (IIRC) to sanction Puno, Verzosa, and Manila City Vice-Mayor Isko Moreno. In the ANC interview, De Mesa said the Palace legal advisers did not agree with all the recommendations contained in the original report submitted to Aquino in September by the IIRC, the multi-agency body tasked to investigate the August 23 hostage incident. He said the "original IIRC report recommended criminal liabilities for Verzosa, Puno" but "we did not agree." No need to drop everything for crisis De Mesa explained that even though Verzosa was the head of the police, "he didn't have to drop everything for hostage crisis." "Even PNoy did not agree that everybody should've dropped everything to solve the hostage crisis," he added. De Mesa said, "a person cannot be held liable for negligence unless there is a rule requiring him to do something, and he did not do it." "There is no crime unless there is a law that defines it and provides penalty. Not all mistakes are criminal," he added. In conducting the Palace review of the IIRC report, De Mesa said: "We had to lay the legal premises of review.There are some misconceptions.We made a list of legal premises to which we base review." Separate deaths of the hostages from bungled assault In analyzing the events surrounding the August 23 hostage incident, De Mesa said "we should separate the deaths of the hostages from the bungled assault." "We should put this incident in the proper perspective. The assault had nothing to do with the death of the hostages," he said. On August 23, a dismissed senior police senior inspector, Rolando Mendoza, hijacked a bus carrying 21 Hong Kong tourists and four Filipinos. At the end of the 11-hour standoff, Mendoza and eight Hong Kong tourists were killed. "Most of the hostages were shot prior to the assault. The most harm was delayed assistance that could have been rendered to hostages," De Mesa said. No clear guidelines De Mesa lamented that there were no clear guidelines on when an incident should be treated as a national crisis. "There were no clear guidelines when a local crisis should be declared a national crisis. This incident was handled by the local arm," he said. He explained that Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim was among those held liable for the mishandling of the crisis because he "failed to fully activate the Crisis Management Committee. At the critical moment,he left the command post without further instructions." "Based on the Crisis Management Manual, he (Lim) was supposed to be at mgt. center all the time," De Mesa explained. Officials held liable According to Aquino on Monday, at least six people will be charged with administrative cases while the hostage-taker's brother, SPO2 Gregorio Mendoza, will be charged with serious illegal detention and illegal possession of firearms. The IIRC had left Gregorio off the list of people recommended for sanctions. Aquino also instructed the Department of Justice to speed up the resolution of the serious disobedience and conspiracy in the illegal detention cases against Gregorio. Aquino ordered the National Police Commission (Napolcom) to file the appropriate charges against the following: