Manila hostage update: Coffins of three hostage victims wrongly labeled

LARISSA MAE SUAREZ, GMANews.TV
09/02/2010 | 02:33 PM

Three of the eight coffins containing the bodies of the August 23 hostage victims were wrongly labeled allegedly because of a mix-up at a funeral parlor in Manila, a Chinese news website reported.

A report of the South China Morning Post (SCMP) said the coffins were flown to the Kwai Chung Public Mortuary on August 25 from a Manila funeral home.

The labeling error was discovered when the families of the victims opened the coffins in the morgue, the SCMP report said.

A separate report by the Associated Press (AP) meanwhile, quoted Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman as saying that, "if there was a mix-up of those names, we apologize."

"It was really the desire to facilitate and bring the bodies to Hong Kong as quickly as possible because that will ease the pain of the families," Soliman said.

In a statement, the Hong Kong Security Bureau said that funeral parlor workers in Manila were most likely responsible for the mistake in the labeling of the coffins, the AP report said.

The Security Bureau did not release the names of the victims who were misidentified, the AP reported.

However, James To Kun-Sun, vice-chairman of the Legco Security Panel, said Hong Kong officials were sent to Manila to take care of details like identification, reception, and the transport of bodies, the SCMP reported.

There was definitely a mistake on the Philippine side but the Hong Kong officials should
take their share of the blame, Kun-Sun added.

The eight hostage victims were killed on August 23 after an 11-hour hostage crisis in Manila.

A dismissed senior police officer, Rolando Mendoza, hijacked a bus carrying 25 passengers, 21 of them were Hong Kong tourists while the rest were Filipinos.

Mendoza was killed along with the eight Hong Kong tourists.

According to the SCMP report, a source said the victims’ bodies were first placed in simple coffins and were correctly labeled.

However, before the bodies were flown to Hong Kong, they were transferred to more elaborate coffins, which was when the mix-up took place, the source explained. – VVP, GMANews.TV