I told Lee Peng Wee, the important thing is to free the hostages. I don’t care who was responsible for their release, what is important is that we end this problem as soon as possible.

Just hang on, we will get you out of here — don’t do anything foolish.

If they insist on their original demand, that would be a deal-breaker.

We’ve received enough assurance from the military that this will not happen again.

I’m saddened by the fact that there are these kind of athletes that competed in the SEA Games, but at the same time I’m glad the Vietnamese officials were able to discover and bring this...

They should not have conducted any test if they cannot really do it. What kind of drug test they were doing if the athletes may still fail [dope testing] as far as WADA is concerned?

We want them to make collective decisions. Otherwise, how can we hold negotiations at all? … Without them putting their demands in writing, we’ll just be confused.

We want to clarify their position. We will look for common ground.

We are expecting some response, hopefully within the day.

It goes without saying that their lives are exposed to extreme danger, so we need to rescue them from that area so they can go back to their loved ones.

That may have sent the wrong signal. We have asked the military to go somewhere else while we are doing the negotiations.

It saddens me that this thing has happened, but I am also glad that sports officials in Vietnam are doing their job in protecting the sport from further game-fixing.

The instruction of the president is for us to secure their release in one batch. Nobody should be left behind.

Maybe we can get the Malaysians this afternoon.

Until we have determined that there is no connection, I will proceed and assume they are not related. I want to be focused on saving the lives of the 21 hostages.

We are hoping and praying that her health is still strong, that she can still take this ordeal which, unfortunately, she needs to go through.

I think we are within striking distance of forging an agreement with the hostage takers.

We will try to produce results as soon as possible.

(Estrada) gave the green light, so we will return (Tuesday) and hopefully by Wednesday the actual negotiation would start.