Manila: President Benigno Aquino ordered security forces to conduct a thorough investigations into last Friday’s bomb explosion at a bus terminal that killed two people and injured 52 others.
In an interview aired over government-run radio station dzRB Saturday, Deputy Presidential Spokesperson Abigail Valte said Aquino had issued orders to the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to determine the individuals or group responsible for the blast.
“As of now, what we can tell you is that current evidence available to us has indicated a particular direction,” she said while pointing out that authorities are still determining whether the attack had been intended to “hurt people, or to derail the Mindanao peace process.”
Reports said the powerful blast that occurred around 3am near a bus terminal in the village of Guiwan in Zamboanga City, immediately killed a motorcycle rickshaw driver and a bystander, destroyed a Kia compact sedan as well as another car and affected at least 40 establishments nearby including the Fantacy karaoke bar where the car had been parked.
According to a report by the local daily Zamboanga Times, police explosive and ordnance squad operatives had recovered fragments from an 81mm mortar shell at the site of the blast.
Police added that the vehicle suspected to be carrying the bomb, a Kia Pride, was a stolen vehicle and was registered in the name of a person from Southern Metro Manila’s Paranaque City.
The intended target of the bomb remains unclear. On August 2012, six people had been injured in a blast inside a bus in Zamboanga City.
For her part, Zamboanga City Mayor BEng Climaco-Salazar believed that the blast has something to do with a recent attempt by the local militant group Abu Sayyaf to spring their captured comrades from the city’s jail.
Just two days before the blast occurred, Climaco-Salazar had expressed concern over the security situation of the city and sought the intervention of justice secretary Leila de Lima and local government secretary Mar Roxas to transfer 57 Abu Sayyaf members detained at the City Reformatory Centre to Manila.
A security sweep carried out by the prison authorities before the blast had lead to the seizure of three pistols and ammunition that were brought in by a prison visitor concealed in a concrete cooking stove.
“The prisoners are not from Zamboanga City, yet we are suffering from the security risks brought about their presence in our city,” Climaco-Salazar said, adding that most of the 57 Abu Sayyaf inmates are either from Sulu or Basilan.
As a result of the bomb attack in Zamboanga City, security forces in Cagayan de Oro City, in Northern Mindnaao, were placed on heightened alert.
