The high-powered M16 rifle used by the slain hostage-taker Rolando Mendoza was the service firearm issued to him more than a decade ago and had remained in his possession ever since.
This was confirmed by Manila police chief Chief Superintendent Rodolfo Magtibay on Thursday during a Senate inquiry on the hostage crisis.
Magtibay said Mendoza, a dismissed policeman who demanded to be reinstated, also carried a .45-caliber pistol when he hijacked the tourist bus and held hostage 21 Hong Kong tourists and four Filipinos.
"The 45-cal pistol was a loose firearm. But the M16 was his firearm issued to him in 1994," Magtibay said.
The Manila police chief's statement startled Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, who said the Philippine National Police (PNP) should be more strict in recalling firearms of lawmen who already left the service or had been dismissed.
"There are always unintended conseuences. We will not blame the person who didn't account for that. Wala naman siyang kinalaman sa hostage," the lawmaker said.
"But maybe you can look at that na pagna-fire na or na-suspend, their firearms should be surrendered to the PNP," he added.
Ballistic tests showed that the 59 empty shells recovered from the tourist bus after the bloodbath came from an M16 rifle. Live ammunition from a cal-45 pistol was likewise recovered.
Members of the Manila police's Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) had just broken into the bus, when the hostage taker indiscriminately fired his rifle. –VVP, GMANews.TV
