Asia-Pacific

Beijing, Manila to talk on deadly bus hijacking

By Zhang Chunyan (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-08-27 07:21

Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Liu Jianchao (R) escorts a family member of a hostage killed in a bus siege at the Ninoy Aquino International airport in Manila August 25, 2010. [Agencies]

BEIJING - China urged the Philippines on Thursday to quickly investigate this week's bus hijacking that left eight Hong Kong tourists dead in Manila, amid reports saying that a high-level Philippine delegation will go to Beijing and Hong Kong to discuss the tragedy.

"We think the most urgent task is to get as clear an investigation result of the incident as soon as possible," Jiang Yu, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said when asked to confirm reports senior Philippine officials would pay visit to China over the incident.

Related readings:  Bodies, survivors of Manila hijack head home  Police chief handling Manila hostage offers leave of absence  9 killed on hijacked tourist bus in Manila  China demands investigation of Manila hostage-taking incident: FM

China and the Philippines have been keeping in close contact over the incident; China, meanwhile, has repeatedly stressed its stance to the Philippines, Jiang said.

According to earlier reports, Philippine President Benigno Aquino III said on Tuesday that Vice President Jejomar Binay and Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo would journey to Beijing and Hong Kong to submit a report on the hostage episode after the investigation was completed.

The tragedy began to unfold in Manila on Monday morning when a Philippine policeman, enraged by his dismissal from the force over charges of corruption, took hostage a busload of 21 Hong Kong tourists.

Eight passengers were killed and several others injured by the end of the standoff that ensued. The gunman was killed in the final police assault.

According to the Associated Press, the Philippine president vowed on Thursday that "someone will pay" for the bus hostage incident as senators began grilling senior police officers over the deadly fiasco.

Addressing students and teachers at a suburban university, Aquino said the hostage-taking tragedy was "ghastly" and admitted there were "many failures" - although he stopped short of directly blaming the police.

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

Manila police Chief Rodolfo Magtibay has taken leave while the four leaders of the assault team that stormed the bus have been relieved from their duties pending an investigation.

Since the 11-hour hostage incident took place on Monday, China saw a precipitous drop in bookings of and cancellations for tourist trips to the Philippines.

China Comfort Travel and Beijing Tourism Group (BTG) International Travel, two leading travel agencies in Beijing, told China Daily on Thursday that all of their customers canceled their scheduled visits to Philippines in the near future, especially in August and September.

More than 500 tourists from the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong have canceled their bookings with the Philippine Airlines (PAL), the airline said on Thursday, Xinhua reported.

"As of Wednesday, our Hong Kong station reported that at least 558 Manila-bound bookings were canceled. The bookings consisted of tourists from Hong Kong, Beijing, Xiamen, and other areas in China," PAL President Jaime J. Bautista said.

Another similarly deadly incident took place just three days later when four people were killed when a group of gunmen, wearing police uniforms, attacked a bus in the southern Philippines.

The gunmen stopped the bus in Lanao del Norte province, 810 km south of Manila, and ordered the passengers to get off, then shot dead two police officers, the driver and his assistant, Orlando Vinas, the provincial police chief told the AP.

After the shooting the gunmen burned the bus and fled.

Wang Haishan contributed to this story.