A mother in Manila is reunited with her son after he was held hostage along with a busload of children for 10 hours by a man who demanded better lives for impoverished children.

A man who took a busload of children and teachers hostage from his day-care center in Manila yesterday freed them after a 10-hour standoff that he used to denounce corruption and demand better lives for impoverished children.

Clutching dolls, toys and backpacks, the children began filing off the bus shortly after 7pm, as Jun Ducat had promised in a rambling message delivered via a loudspeaker hours earlier.

Ducat, a 56-year-old civil engineer who has staged other attention-grabbing stunts in the past, then put the pin back in a grenade, handed it to a provincial governor, Luis "Chavit" Singson, and surrendered as Singson held his arm.

Ducat, who received assurances that his students would get a good education, apologized to them and to police.

"Let the candles be a warning," he said. "If the promises remain unfulfilled, you will see those candles again."

Jubilant parents were quickly reunited with their children while Ducat was led to a waiting police car and driven away.

"I accept that I should be jailed because what I did was against the law," Ducat said shortly before the standoff ended.

Manila police district chief Danilo Abarzosa said he will be charged with 32 counts of illegal detention and abduction, illegal possession of explosives and illegal possession of firearms.

White candles had been lit, in accordance with Ducat's request, and placed in yellow cups lined up under the yellow police tape used to cordon off the area. Police and other officials also held candles outside the bus, as did people in the crowd that went to watch the incident unfold.

Considering the circumstances, the standoff was fairly low-key, although Senator Roman "Bong" Revilla Jr, a former action film star who boarded the bus for negotiations and later kept in contact with Ducat by cell phone, said the man had dangled a grenade, the pin pulled, from a shaky hand.

Dr Leopoldo Orantia, spokesman for a government hospital, said the children would undergo checkups and psychological debriefings.

The incident virtually shut down the capital's main office building, drew thousands of onlookers and was beamed live around the world - drawing the type of media coverage that Ducat clearly wanted with midterm elections scheduled for May.

Ducat founded the 145-student Musmos Day Care Center about four years ago in Manila's Tondo slum district. He chartered the tourist bus for a field trip marking the end of the school year.

Instead, he and at least one other hostage-taker had the driver take them to city hall, where they taped a handwritten sheet of paper to the windshield, saying they were holding 32 children and two teachers and were armed with two grenades, an Uzi assault rifle and a .45-caliber pistol.

"I am asking for justice so they can have continued education up to college," Ducat said.

Social Welfare Secretary Esperanza Cabral offered assurances that the children would get a good education, and a computer school offered them scholarships once they graduate from high school.

Editor: Yan