Brandishing an Uzi submachine gun and hand grenades, 56-year old Armando Ducat and an accomplice hijacked a school bus with 26 Filipino preschoolers and four teachers on March 28. The bus stopped in front of Manila City Hall, where Ducat held his hostages until given air time on local television to plead for improvements and an end to corruption in Manila’s impoverished Tondo district. “I am so sorry I took these children in a violent action to call the attention of the Filipino people to open their minds to the political reality,” said Ducat in a cell phone call to a local news station. Ducat insisted he did not intend to harm the children, who appeared unharmed in the bus windows and were brought ice cream by police.

A civil engineer, Ducat operates a free preschool for 145 children, which he built in the slums of Manila. Ducat’s dedication to his students is so well respected that neither the hostages nor their families will press charges against him. Parents, teachers and residents in Tondo are demanding Ducat’s release.

“We don’t want him to go to jail,” said Mirabelle Moreno, whose 6-year old daughter was among the hostages, to BBC News. “He was just doing what he thought was right and just for us – the poor.”

“In our own eyes, he’s a real hero. He has been helping a lot of people in our community without expecting anything in return,” said Tondo resident Susan Ferol to BBC News.

Secretary of Justice Raul Gonzales told media that the state intends to charge Ducat regardless of the parents’ hesitance. Filipino President Gloria Arroyo is calling for an expedited judicial process and trial to prevent copycat hijackers.

The Philippines is currently at war with Abu Sayyaf, Islamic separatists who have a penchant for killing hostages, and the government is very strict with any hostage taker. Just two weeks before Ducat’s stunt, Manila SWAT killed a disgruntled farmer who took a circuit court prisoner over a land dispute.

The disastrous kleptocracies of Ferdinand Marcos and Joseph Estrada had left the Philippine economy in shambles when anti-corruption advocate Arroyo was elected in 2001. Arroyo was ranked the fourth most powerful woman in the world by Forbes magazine in 2005, but in the face of widespread unemployment, overwhelming national debt and the world’s highest birth rate, Arroyo has affected few changes in her two terms of office.

Allegations of voter fraud in 2004, along with corruption scandals within her family and administration, have severely discredited Arroyo with a Filipino population that has mobilized to overthrow corrupt leaders in the past. Arroyo is in a difficult political situation if Ducat goes free.

Without complaining witnesses, the Philippine Justice Department might find it hard to make a case against Ducat and his accomplice Caesar Carbonell. Finding a jury willing to convict a local hero might prove even more difficult.

Even Manila Mayor Lito Atienza spoke highly of Ducat.

Atienza said to BBC News, “He’s a very, very passionate individual who has his own kind of thinking on the solutions to our problems.