MANILA, Philippines — Majority Leader Rodolfo Fariñas asked the House of Representatives to subpoena the foreign chairman of Resorts World Manila and have him arrested if he fails to honor the summons.
Fariñas made the call at the continuation Wednesday of the hearing into the deadly June 2 rampage by a gunman who set off a fire that killed 37 persons and also killed himself after the House learned that Hong Kong resident David Chua Ming Huat, and not Andrew Tan, chairs the Resorts World Manila, which is part of the Travelers International Hotel Group Inc.
When an incensed Fariñas asked why Chua did not find the time to attend the inquiry into the incident that claimed the lives of guests and employees of the casino-hotel complex, Resorts World officials informed him Chua is not a Filipino but lives abroad.
But this further irked Fariñas, who said Chua should have attended the inquiry since Hong Kong is a mere two-hour flight from Manila.
During the hearing, Resorts World also showed 20 minutes of closed circuit television footage showing the rampage of Jessie Carlos, the former government worker described by authorities as a gambling addict who had chalked up millions of pesos in debts.
The footage showed that Carlos had fired as many as 300 shot and that a bag of bullets he had with him had detonated from the heat of the fire he had set, leading people to believe more than one gunman was involved.
At the same time, the video also showed that water sprinklers at the casino were not triggered even as smoke from the blazing gaming table began to fill the room and the CCTV cameras eventually blacked out.
Resorts World also told the House it would take up to 33 days to fully transfer the data from the 3,100 CCTV cameras installed in the hotel and that they still had 28 days’ worth of footage to move.
The House has asked the resort to provide all the CCTV footage from May 31 to June 3.
