Children freed by hostage-takers in Manila, Philippines

Updated at 4:55 pm

MANILA: Hostage-takers armed with grenades freed children they had held captive in a bus for over nine hours in the Philippine capital on Wednesday, live television showed.   

Two people believed to be the hostage-takers surrendered and were escorted to police vehicles.

Gunmen had held 31 pre-schoolers and two teachers in a bus in the Philippines capital and agreed to free the hostages and surrender at 7 pm, police and negotiators said on Wednesday.

"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 had 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 had said.

Action movie star senator Ramon Revilla, who helped negotiate the release of a child, said Ducat said candles must be lit at dusk when he surrenders.

"He wants the area around him to light up," Revilla had said.

"He said the candles would symbolize enlightenment."

Claiming to be armed with guns and grenades, Ducat and two associates had seized 32 children and two teachers they were 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.