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Manila. The Philippine president vowed on Thursday that “someone will pay” for the bus hostage crisis that killed Hong Kong tourists as senators began grilling senior police officers over the deadly fiasco.

President Benigno Aquino III said the nearly 12-hour hostage-taking drama on Monday was “ghastly” and admitted there were “many failures,” but stopped short of directly blaming the police.

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

At the Senate investigation, Manila police chief Rodolfo Magtibay said he gave the order to assault the bus carrying a Hong Kong tour guide and 20 tourists after hearing shots following a breakdown in the negotiations with the hostage-taker.

The man, a Manila policeman who had been dismissed and was demanding reinstatement, released several children and elderly hostages early on, but later opened fire on the remaining hostages.

Eight people were killed before a police sniper took out the gunman.

In Hong Kong, business was halted in the bustling Asian financial center for a three-minute tribute on Thursday morning to the slain tourists.

Hong Kong leader Donald Tsang and hundreds of citizens bowed their heads as both the Chinese and Hong Kong flags were raised and then lowered to half-mast in a downtown square.

Residents elsewhere in the city also paused to pay their respects. Aquino and other officials have promised a full investigation.

Interior Secretary Jessie Robredo, who is in charge of the national police, has acknowledged there were problems with how the crisis was handled, inclu-ding inadequacies in prepar-ation, equipment and training.

Magtibay has taken leave and four leaders of the assault team that eventually stormed the bus have been relieved pending an investigation.

Officials have said the firearms used by 200 police commandos will be subjected to ballistic tests to determine if some of the hostages were hit by police gunfire.

Magtibay told the senators that he “honestly believed” assurances by his assault team leader that they were prepared and were carrying the right equipment for the operation.

Meanwhile, gunmen wearing police uniforms stopped a passenger bus in the southern Philippines on Thursday and shot four people, including two police marshals, officials said.

The area is home to Muslim rebels and several criminal gangs. The bus was was flagged down at a road checkpoint by the gunmen.

One survivor, Jason Leung, remained hospitalized in Manila after surgery on a head wound.

Meanwhile, flag-carrier Philippine Airlines said on Thursday hundreds of people from Hong Kong and mainland China had cancelled flight bookings to Manila after the bus hostage crisis.

“PAL is beginning to feel the initial impact of a Hong Kong government advisory warning its residents to refrain from all travel to the Philippines,” airline president Jaime Bautista said.

He said the company’s Hong Kong office had reported at least 558 Manila-bound bookings had been cancelled as of Wednesday.

In the immediate aftermath of the bloodbath, Hong Kong issued its top-level “black” travel alert for the Philippines, urging Hong Kong residents to avoid all travel to the country.
 

AP, AFP