TANAUAN CITY, Batangas — “A loving and kind person.”

This was how Tatay Leonardo described his son, the late Senior Inspector Rolando Mendoza who was killed by policemen after he allegedly ended the lives of his eight foreign hostages inside a tourist bus during the 12-hour hostage drama at the Quirino Grandstand in Manila last Monday.

Tatay Leonardo, 79, a former farmer told Manila Bulletin/TEMPO in an interview at his residence in Barangay Banadero that his son planned to run as Barangay Chairman this coming elections.

The elder Mendoza said Rolando played “ tong its” with his friends and relatives during his free time, and routinely cleaned the front yard of their compound.

He said that Rolando also put up a small canteen business for his family.

He said he thought that Rolando went to Manila last Monday morning just to surrender the guns and ammunition issued by the Philippine National Police.

Cathy, sister of Rolando said she called immediately his elder brother after seeing him on television, but realized that it was not his brother talking to her because of a different voice.

“I think it was one of the passengers of the bus who answered my call, then I put off my cellular phone,” Cathy said who just arrived from Pagbilao, Quezon on Tuesday.

The former patrol police officer has three children — Bismar, a PNP member assigned in Abra; Andrew, a seaman, and only daughter Grace, a call center agent.

Tatay Leonardo said he hates the government after the police did not send Bismar to his father as early as possible.

He again blamed the police for arresting his son SPO2 Gregorio. “Dapat di nila hinuli ang anak ko at may magagawa naman siya,” he added.

Rolando was dismissed from the police service after he and his four colleagues were found guilty in robbery-extortion charges last 2008 in Manila.