Manila Hostage Drama

MANILA, Philippines—For Armando Ducat Jr., an engineer who was charged for holding a busload of children hostage for several hours in 2007, the graduation on Friday of 130 students from the Musmos Daycare Center was both a happy and sad occasion.

Ducat told the crowd who had gathered for the simple ceremony in Parola Compound, Tondo, that this year’s batch might be the last to graduate from the preschool which he owns.

“I saw a vision that the Musmos Daycare Center might slowly disappear,” he said.

“In my two years in jail, I was deeply affected [financially]. I lost millions [of pesos] in my desire to give, in my hope of making the government aware of the dire state of education,” he added.

Ducat and his aide, Caesar Carbonnel, were released on bail from the Manila City Jail in December. Both men face 26 counts of serious illegal detention at the Manila Regional Trial Court for holding 26 students of the school captive before releasing them unharmed.

The 57-year-old engineer had said he staged the incident to draw attention to corruption in government and to demand better lives for the children.

Ducat later told the Philippine Daily Inquirer after the graduation ceremony that although the future of the preschool was uncertain, he was still hopeful that “someone would be kind enough to give. I hope we are given more blessings.”

Since putting up the daycare center several years ago, he has shouldered the costs of running and maintaining the school which provides free education to children in the depressed area.

According to Ducat, he spends between P500,000 and P700,000 a year for the salaries of teachers and staffers, including the school supplies for the students.

He pointed out that the 130 students who graduated from his daycare center was only a very small percentage of the 10,000 children at the Parola Compound who have not been given an opportunity to go to school.

His somber words, however, failed to dampen the upbeat mood at the graduation ceremony. Parents happily took pictures of their children as they accepted their diplomas from Ducat who, on top of a handshake, gave each a fistful of sweets.

Margie Balosa, 27, the mother of one of the graduates, said she intended to enroll her daughter at the P. Guevarra Elementary School

Balosa, who was six months pregnant, was accompanied by her three-year-old daughter whom she said she wanted to send to the Musmos Daycare Center.

But with Ducat’s grim announcement, she said she was at a loss on where her younger children would study.

Ducat, meanwhile, urged the parents of this year’s batch of graduates to take steps to ensure their children’s formal education.

Looking at the kids who were dressed in white togas, he said, “I can see in their faces a dream for a bright future.”