Press Release
March 28, 2007

Joint Statement of Sen. Luisa Ejercito Estrada and Sen. Jinggoy Ejercito Estrada: DESPERATION BEHIND HOSTAGE-TAKING

Desperation as life becomes bleaker under the administration of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is the obvious reason why an owner of a fledgling day-care center in Parola Compound, Manila took matters into his own hands and held hostage his students and two teachers yesterday, this according to Sen. Dra. Loi Estrada and her son, Sen. Jinggoy Estrada.

The drama that unfolded yesterday in Manila highlighted the fact that life is becoming bleaker under the present administration that even reasonable persons are now driven to desperate acts in order to focus attention to the plight of our countrymen, especially the children, the two said in a joint statement.

Traffic was near standstill in Manila after Ducat, with the reported help of two of his still unidentified friends, commandeered a school bus carrying 32 kindergarten and two teachers on take them hostage around 9:00 am yesterday.

The hostages were on their way to a field trip in Tagaytay City .

The Estradas called attention to the fact that the hostage taker, Jun Ducat, who runs the Musmos Day Care Center in Parola, did not draw attention to his own self but rather, to the bleak future that awaits his hostages when he made his demands.

Ducat principally demanded for the government to assure the continued education of 145 students of the center and for the granting of land titles to their parents.

Even if reasonable people like Ducat could no longer believe in the future, how much more for many of our countrymen who remain mired in poverty? the lawmakers said, adding:

They added the incident should jolt everybody, especially Malacanang, to the realization that stop-gap measures and programs to address poverty and social inequity which are rich in rhetoric but lacking in real substance would no longer suffice to contain the buildup of anger and despair among a growing number of Filipinos.

The Estradas also noted that the incident came on the heels of a report of the Social Weather Stations that more and more Filipino households are getting hungry nowadays with at least 13 million households or at least 19 percent of the population felt the pangs of hunger in at least one occasion in the last three months.

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