Philippines hostage-takers to surrender

MANILA: Gunmen holding 31 pre-schoolers and two teachers inside a bus in the Philippines capital have agreed to free the hostages and surrender at 7:00pm (1630 IST), police and negotiators said today.

"He will just let the hostages go and give himself up," police spokesman Chief Superintendent Cipriano Querol said over local television, referring to Amando "Jun" Ducat, head of a Manila pre-school who hijacked a bus and held hostage a group of students and teachers.

In exchange, police agreed to let the press cover the surrender.

"We acceded to that condition. We assured him that he will be in safe hands after he surrenders and that nothing will happen to him," Querol said.

Action movie star senator Ramon Revilla, who helped negotiate the release of one child out of 34 people held by the gunmen, said Ducat asked that candles be lit at dusk, when he surrenders.

"He wants the area around him to light up," Revilla told reporters. "He said the candles would symbolise enlightenment."

Claiming to be armed with guns and grenades, Ducat and two associates seized 32 children and two teachers they had tricked into joining a field trip.

The bus was diverted to a street near the Manila city hall, where the suspects demanded free education and housing for 145 students at a pre-school that Ducat runs, including the hostages, in the city's depressed Tondo district.

One of the children was later freed unharmed and taken to hospital to be treated for fever.