The entire Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) force of the Philippine National Police (PNP) has been ordered to undergo retraining and other refresher courses following the bloody hostage drama in Manila on Monday that left eight foreign hostages dead.

Senior Superintendent Agrimero Cruz, Jr., PNP spokesman, said the retraining order is one of the immediate recommendations made by the top-level Post Critical Investigation and Management Committee (PCIMC) after observing several blunders in the way the assault operation was carried out.

“There would a series of retraining scheduled for all the SWAT units of the PNP. This is to correct some of the lapses that have been observed in handling the hostage-taking incident in Luneta last Monday,” Cruz said.

Cruz revealed that SWAT units assigned to the five police districts in Metro Manila will be the first batch of those who will undertake the six-day retraining and other courses.

The training program will be held at the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) headquarters in Camp Bagong Diwa, Bicutan, Taguig City next week.

But Cruz said the training program in Bicutan next week is limited not only to SWAT members but also to other police forces likely to be tapped in crisis management situations.

Among them are members of the Scene-of-the-Crime Office (SOCO), the Health Services units of the PNP, and other units that focus on the investigation aspect of crisis situations.

Cruz said one of the matters that will be emphasized in the program is the effective crowd control.

The issue of effective crowd control was reportedly emphasized in the program, following observations on how the media covered the hostage-taking incident and the scenario seen on television wherein it was a large group of kibitzers who immediately went to the Hong Thai travel tourist bus after dismissed Senior Inspector Rolando Mendoza was neutralized, instead of police medical teams and investigators.

Mendoza fired his M16 at least 58 times – PNP
The PNP-Crime Laboratory said on Saturday it has already finished some of the examinations it conducted for the evidence gathered during the Manila hostage-taking incident.

Senior Superintendent Lorlie Arroyo, executive officer of the PNP Crime Laboratory, said that based on the autopsy report, all the foreign victims and even Mendoza died of gunshot wounds.

Arroyo also revealed that both the hands of Mendoza yielded positive for presence of gun residue nitrates when a paraffin test was conducted. The cadaver of Mendoza was taken on Monday night at the PNP Crime Lab.

“The M16 rifle recovered from him also yielded positive for gun residue nitrates,” said Arroyo in a radio interview.

Arroyo also bared that all the 58 fired cartridges recovered from the tourist bus came from the M16 rifle of Mendoza.