Manila: Authorities in the restive southern Philippines said they defused five roadside bombs near the site of a 2009 massacre on the day the relatives of the 58 victims were marking the second anniversary of the killings.
There were no casualties reported but tensions are running high. Provincial Governor Esmail Mangudadatu, whose relatives were among the dead, cancelled the visit yesterday to the massacre site in Ampatuan township in Maguindanao province saying "We're taking no chance."
It wasn't clear who was responsible for planting the explosives but about 100 of the 197 people charged in the politically motivated killings are still at large.
Shooting incidents and bomb explosions are common in the southern Philippines despite increased security.
Relatives of 58 people massacred in the Philippines' worst political violence sued former President Gloria Arroyo on Tuesday, claiming she could have prevented the killings.
100 suspects
At least two Arroyo allies, including a former governor of an autonomous Muslim region, are among about 100 suspects being tried on murder charges in the massacre that occurred two years ago. The dead included 32 media workers, making it the worst single killing of journalists in the world.
Arroyo was arrested last week on charges that she ordered the former governor, Andal Ampatuan Sr, and another official to commit election fraud two years before the massacre. Arroyo has condemned and denied any knowledge of the killings, but lawyer Harry Roque said she should have known that Ampatuan and his son were a danger.
Roque filed the lawsuit on Tuesday, seeking 15 million pesos (Dh1.27 million) in damages. In court documents, he argued that Arroyo turned a blind eye to a decade of human rights abuses in the region and "instead she cultivated ties with the Ampatuans, who would prove indispensable to her continued hold on political power."
Reporters, drivers and assistants were accompanying family and supporters of the Ampatuans' political rival en route to file for candidacy in regional elections when gunmen allegedly led by former town mayor Andal Ampatuan Jr stopped them and led them to a hilltop clearing where they were mowed down and hastily buried in mass graves.
Mass
Relatives and colleagues of the journalists who died visited the massacre site on Tuesday, the eve of the killings' second anniversary. They offered prayers and 58 white lilies and lighted candles. A Catholic priest celebrated Mass at the mound where concrete markers bearing the names of dead were erected.
