Hostage takers agree to surrender

Philippine police formed a deal with a gunman who on Wednesday seized a bus full of children and teachers from a day care centre and was still holding them hostage seven hours later, a spokesman said.

The man identified as Jun Ducat, accompanied by at least one other man and believed to be armed with grenades, an Uzi submachine gun and a revolver, had earlier freed one child but was holding another 31 and at least two teachers hostage.

"There's been an agreement for him to surrender at 7pm,'' said police spokesman Cipriano Querol, referring to the hostage-taker.

He said the man would surrender at 7pm (1100 GMT).

The bus was parked outside Manila City Hall from 9.30 in the morning and surrounded by elite police teams and thousands of onlookers.

There were no other details immediately available on what deal was reached. But Ducat said he would surrender if he was promised that 145 children at the day care centre in the capital's poor suburb of Tondo were provided with education, television reports said.

He also demanded to be allowed to speak on television and he was handed a mobile telephone patched on to local networks.

"I am so sorry I took these children in a violent action to call the attention of the Filipino people to open their minds to the political reality,'' Ducat said.

"There's so much corruption in the country. We're number one in Asia in corruption,'' he said in a speech which lasted for at least 15 minutes.

"I am calling on the Filipino people to stop the rotten political system. Don't rely on the politicians for your future. No one can help you but yourselves."

He was later allowed to speak again through a wireless amplifier, and his statement was carried live by radio stations and television networks.

The children were to be taken on a field trip to a nearby town when the bus was seized. Although the drama dragged on for hours and the bus was parked in the open under a harsh sun, they did not seem to be in obvious discomfort.

Television showed the children waving when curtains on the bus windows were pulled aside. At one stage, a policeman delivered cartons of ice-cream.

A local politician, Senator Ramon Revilla, entered the bus to talk with the gunmen, and returned around 30 minutes later with hopes but no signs of progress. He is believed to know Ducat personally.

"He has some demands and I already gave him an assurance that I would guarantee the education of the children,'' Revilla told reporters.

"He has requested more time and he would come out with the children. I am asking the police not to make any move that would agitate him.''

Ducat was probably the man of the same name who took two priests hostage in the late 1980s after a dispute over building a church, television reports said. In that incident, the weapons used turned out later to be fake and no one was harmed.

According to other reports, he unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 2001 and opened the Tondo day care centre three years ago.

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*BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Information on the problems in the Philippines:
http://uk.oneworld.net/guides/philippines/development?gclid=CJjA5PSyl4sC...

*QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
What do you think about the possibility that Ducat may have taken priests hostage before, ran for Congress, and opened a day care center?

Ducat seems to have pure motives for his act. Do you think that he is right or wrong for what he did?

Do you think there are situations where violence is warranted to get a point across?

What do you think it would be like to live in a place where you had to do something crazy in order to be heard?

*REMEMBER TO BE RESPECTFUL
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