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DAVAO CITY—A crude bomb rigged with cut nails and shrapnel went
off at noon Thursday inside an air-conditioned bus in
the common terminal in Digos City, Davao del Sur, as
passengers were disembarking.
No
fatalities were reported, but 27 were injured.
Police
and military officials said the bomb was assembled from
trinitrotoluene, rigged with cut nails as shrapnel and
triggered by a cellular telephone. The bomb was placed
in a half-liter plastic mineral-water bottle and hidden
in a backpack, said Chief Supt. Andres Caro II, Davao
regional commander.
“It was
placed at the center left area of the bus, seven seats
away from the driver,” Caro told reporters.
“Investigators have recovered the remnants of the cell
phone, including the charger.”
The bomb
went off at about 11:50 am, shortly after the
air-conditioned Metro Shuttle bus, with body number 176
and license plate LWS 506, arrived at the bus terminal
in Digos City from Bansalan, 16 km west of Digos City.
Witnesses, including vendors, said the bomb exploded
while the passengers were disembarking. Blood stains
were seen at the door of the bus. The explosion
shattered glass windows and blasted a wide hole on the
floor of the bus.
Police
officials in Davao del Sur said the suspects may have
been the two passengers who flagged down the bus outside
the terminal in Bansalan. The bus was plying the
Bansalan-Davao City route, with stopover in Digos City.
A bus
inspector and the female conductor, Marian Apurado, told
investigators that they believe two young-looking
passengers are the likely perpetrators.
The
alleged assailants, they said, sat on the seat where the
bomb was placed. “We have parked for only 10 minutes
when the bomb exploded.”
Apurado
was already out of the bus and was in the toilet when
she heard the explosion.
The
injured included old men and women, some children and a
policeman. Although reporters covering the incident said
there were 28 injured, Caro said that the official list
showed only 27 victims. They were sent to the Davao del
Sur Provincial Hospital, and four of those who were in
serious condition were later transferred to the Davao
Medical Center in Davao City.
The
police have cleared the terminal of all buses and
vehicles and cordoned it. The new terminal compound
covers 1.5 hectares, including the area occupied by
vendors. The terminal operates 24 hours a day and serves
an average of 28,000 passengers daily.
Explosives and ordnance units of the police and the
Army’s 39th Infantry Battalion were sent to scour for
evidence. The manager of the bus terminal later
announced at about 2 p.m. that police and Army security
personnel have allowed the terminal to be cleaned and
open for operations.
Digos
Mayor Arsenio Latasa said this was the second bombing of
a bus in the city in the last two years.
He said
he was “100-percent sure that this is a case of
extortion” and involved the same group that also bombed
a bus owned by another company. “The same message of the
bombing was sent to the owner of the bus company.”
He said
the perpetrators called the Davao City office of Metro
Shuttle “almost simultaneously that the bomb exploded
and told them that ‘your bus exploded and your office is
next.’”
Latasa
said he was surprised at the bombing of the Metro
Shuttle bus, saying that he never heard of the company
encountering extortion problems unlike the Weena Bus
company, which has lost several buses in more than a
decade of operation, to extortion-related bombings.
Also, he
said, the Metro Shuttle has also hired security guards
in the terminals they used. “They usually go up the bus
to inspect it, but this time, the guards were having
lunch.”
Mayor
Rey Uy of Tagum City, Davao del Norte, who owns Metro
Shuttle, confirmed receiving extortion demands, but said
he could not ascertain the identity of the group. “It’s
possible that it is extortion, because we have not give
in to their demands.” |
