Parents of hostages won’t press charges

The parents of the preschool children Armando Ducat had taken hostage Wednesday will not file charges against him.

Ducat, said by some to be a quiet, respected businessman, held 26 children and four teachers hostage in a school bus.

For this caper, police have filed charges of serious illegal detention and illegal possession of firearms and explosives against Ducat, a 56-year-old civil engineer. They are also mulling whether to charge Ducat with violating anti-terrorism and anti-child abuse laws.

Pregnant housewife Mary Jane de la Cruz had nothing but praise for Ducat, who owns the now-padlocked Musmos Day Care Center whose charges he held captive in a 10-hour standoff with police.

A few feet away, her son Jeramae played cards with dozens of other children. In a fresh Musmos Day Care uniform and an ID, he appears to have forgotten his ordeal and flashed an innocent smile, his brown, decaying teeth and bony frame indications of a hard life.

"He is a good person," Dela Cruz, 32, said of Ducat. "I don’t personally know his background, but he showed up here two years ago, and lived among us."

"He has been very kind to us. He put up this school. Dozens of pre-schoolers have finished here, learned their ABC’s here," she said. "We will appeal that he be released."

Dela Cruz is pregnant with her eighth child, and says she does not know how to feed everyone. "God will find a way," she said. "But I want my children to at least finish high school."

Some parents, visited by The STAR in their homes, said they could not deny Ducat’s request for forgiveness.

"We owe him a lot. He gave our children free education, free food and clothing. He is always there to help," said Rosita Osita, one of the parents.

Osita said most of them could not act against Ducat due to a "sense of gratitude." She said while they can forgive him, "I don’t think I would entrust him with our children’s lives ever again."

Lara Moreno, another parent, confirmed that they do not have plans to file charges against Ducat, who is now in the custody of the Manila police.

But she admitted she was worried about the effect the incident might have on her six-year-old son, who said he was aware his life was in danger inside the bus and that he saw Ducat carrying grenades and guns.

Ducat’s day care center was a beacon of hope in Tondo, Manila’s Parola compound, a labyrinth of dark, musky alleys and cardboard and tin houses where he had hoped to mould grimy children into future leaders, or at least college-educated workers.

Nobody has done a proper census here, but district leaders estimate there are some 150,000 residents, with as many as 10 people crammed into each makeshift hovel.

Armed with at least one grenade and guns, Ducat parked the bus symbolically near Manila City Hall, and demanded free housing and education for 145 of his wards, including those he held hostage.

He had promised them a field trip, buying them toy guns and enough food for two days. Parents said Ducat was a friend, someone they trusted.

He released the hostages after he was allowed on national and international radio and television to deliver a rambling discourse on poverty, dirty politics and how the public should join hands in fighting corruption.

President Arroyo ordered a speedy prosecution, calling it a "bizarre drama" that would weigh heavily on the nation’s image.

But it also was a reflection of government’s failure to address urban blight, with thousands of Filipinos streaming into Manila’s slums every year in hopes of landing jobs.

With some 40 percent of the estimated 87 million population living on less than $2 a day, many drift to the cities and end up living in squalid shanty towns.

Here in Parola, dozens of shoeless, semi-naked children play under the shade of an open-air gymnasium. Also built by Ducat, it offers the only space where everyone can socialize — vendors hawking rice cakes, jobless fathers drinking gin, bleary-eyed grandmothers smoking boredom away.

Mothers cook in alleyways, using blackened pots and charcoal, and families eat using discarded tupperware and their bare hands.

A stench of rotting fish and decay wafts from the alleyways. The heat is oppressive.

"This is a social time bomb," said Elmer Calleja, one of Ducat’s volunteer teachers. "Look at them, tell me if you see hope in this surrounding."

Calleja, 30, has lived here all his life and with the help of relatives and perseverance, managed to finish college, earning a degree in education.

He said Ducat’s Musmos Daycare Center has taught more than 200 children since it was built in 2005. Now, its benefactor gone, nobody is sure where to get the funds before the school season begins in June.

"We had no indication he would do what he did. Mr. Ducat has been very helpful to us, and we all want him freed. Maybe he wanted to be aggressive and show our sad plight here," he said.

Gemma Arroyo, 28, whose daughter Angelica, six, was also among those held hostage, said she would help organize a petition so Ducat will not be charged and prosecuted.

"He was only helping. I am not mad about what he did. We knew he wasn’t going to hurt the child. Of course at first we were afraid, but after several hours in the bus, it was clear he only wanted to talk," she said.

"Sometimes, you need to be brave to be heard," she said. "Is it so bad to help the poor?"

Ducat, however, has a history of taking people hostage to get his way.

On Nov. 18, 1989, armed with two hand grenades and a caliber .38 revolver, he and construction worker Romeo Andaya took hostage parish priest Fr. Tom Gonzales and his assistant Rudy Talawales for almost six hours and surrendered shortly before 10 p.m. following assurances from then Manila Mayor Mel Lopez, then Manila police chief Maj. Gen. Alfredo Lim and Bishop Teodoro Bacani.

Ducat, then a building contractor of the San Roque Church in Blumentritt, Manila, said he took the priest hostage to clear his name in an alleged anomaly regarding the church’s construction. – with AFP