Bus operators told: Pick up passengers only in terminals

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO—Transport firms serving provincial routes should pick up passengers only in designated terminals to avoid hostage-taking and other crimes on buses, a Philippine National Police official said.

Chief Supt. Agrimero Cruz Jr., PNP spokesperson, issued this reminder on the heels of a hostage-taking case in Pampanga on Monday, where an off-duty policeman shot and killed the hostage-taker and saved two children. The case was the second in the province since 2008.

Cruz said in stations, private security agencies can inspect and search packages, luggage and hand-carried bags, and frisk passengers.

“That way they can determine if a passenger is carrying firearms or other weapons,” he said by phone on Tuesday.

But while police have operational procedures in handling and preventing such situations, Cruz noted that bus companies have “no hard and fast rules” to go by.

Security agencies usually do the job of ensuring passengers safety, he said.

A policy not to collect passengers along highways can help deny access to suspects, he said.

Police help avoid crimes on buses by fielding undercover agents. They ride buses at random and their guns concealed as they patrol.

Police also put up help desks in bus stations, especially on holidays when many commuters go to the provinces.

Painful lesson

These measures are similar to those devised in March 2008 by the Central Luzon police and 10 bus companies two months after a security guard killed a man, wounded another and held hostage seven women inside a Genesis bus in Lubao, Pampanga.

Cruz said the efforts of PO2 Eduardo Santiago to save two children, aged 1 and 5, who were held hostage by Sidro Brine inside an Alaminos City-bound Five Star bus on Monday, was “definitely a good job that the [PNP] is proud of.”

Santiago, who was off-duty, was a passenger in another Five Star bus that stopped along the North Luzon Expressway (NLEx) to help the first bus that was thought to have suffered engine trouble.

He convinced Brine, 44, to release the passengers, conductor and driver. Santiago took control of the bus when Brine asked to be taken to Barangay Balibago in Angeles City. The policeman, however, drove the bus to Mabalacat, Pampanga.

Senior Supt. Sheldon Jacaban, chief of the police Highway Patrol Group in Central Luzon, said Brine began stabbing Santiago when they reached Mabalacat.

In the struggle that ensued, Santiago hit a quarry truck in front of the bus but managed to bring the vehicle back to its lane and, using his service firearm, shot and killed Brine.