Valenzuela worker takes city exec hostage

Tension gripped the Valenzuela City Hall for more than an hour after an irate employee, who failed to receive his productivity bonus, took their city administrator hostage yesterday afternoon.

Sanitary inspector Manuelito Razon, 45, locked up city administrator Anicia Marquez in her office at around 3 p.m. He claimed he had a grenade and threatened to blow up Marquez’s office.

Police seized Razon when he temporarily left Marquez’s office to answer the call of nature.

Razon, who has been in government service for 25 years, faces charges of illegal detention, grave threats and alarm and scandal, said Metro Manila police chief Director Leopoldo Bataoil, who rushed to the scene.

“He will be dismissed, but we will hear his case,” Valenzuela Mayor Sherwin Gatchalian said, adding that the reasons Razon mentioned for the hostage-taking were “too trivial.”

Razon told the mayor he committed the deed because his immediate superior, sanitation department head Joe Tantay, was not doing his work and was making him do it instead.

Gatchalian said Razon was suspended for six months on a work-related complaint in 2005. He added that a taxpayer also filed a complaint against Razon for alleged extortion.

Sources said Razon allegedly failed a recent performance review, which resulted in the forfeiture of the P10,000 bonus due government employees and the P1,000 performance bonus from the city government. The sources said this could have triggered the hostage-taking.

“The suspect was unarmed, he only claimed earlier that he has a grenade while holding Attorney Marquez inside her office,” Northern Police District (NPD) director Chief Superintendent Eric Javier told The STAR.

Marquez said Razon carried a canister of air freshener, not a grenade.

According to Razon’s co-employee, Geraldine de Guzman, the suspect, who was drunk, was questioning city hall officials about his P2,000 productivity bonus.

“He was not included in the yearly productivity bonus because he has a pending case at the local board of ethics,” De Guzman said.

De Guzman said that at around noon, Razon had already created at scene in the city health office by threatening to stab one of the doctors. Other employees calmed him down.

But at around 3 p.m., Razon, still under the influence of liquor, entered the city administrator’s office and barricaded himself and Marquez inside.