Lacson orders dealers of explosives in C. Visayas watched

CEBU - Philippine National Police chief Director General Panfilo Lacson has ordered an inventory of all explosives now in the possession of explosives dealers and wants to know how these are being disposed of.

Lacson specifically wants explosives warehouses in Cebu and in the rest of the region inspected and that a report submitted to him before June 3.

Senior Inspector Nonillo Poliquit, chief of the PNP regional Firearms and Explosives Office based at Camp Sergio Osmeña Sr., and operations chief Cecil Ezra Sandalo are now discussing plans on how to conduct the inventory.

Poliquit said there is only one explosives manufacturer in the region based in Bacong, Negros Oriental, while explosives dealers there are very few.

Lacson wants to know how explosives dealers dispose of their products because of the possibility that some of them may end up getting sold to unauthorized buyers or fall into the wrong hands.

Ammonium nitrate, an agro-chemical product, is a common ingredient for making explosives yet it can be bought easily from any fertilizer distributor.

In some huge sugarcane farms in northern Cebu, hundreds of bags of ammonium nitrate are delivered as fertilizers but there are no guarantees some may get diverted for use in the manufacture of explosive compounds.

Police claim it is standard practice to place two locks on the doors of explosives warehouses. One key is kept by the warehouse owner while the other is kept by the police.

It means a warehouse owner cannot unload explosives without informing the police. Explosives dealers are also required to maintain records of each and every sale.

But ammonium nitrate can also be obtained from other sources and a fisherman who uses illegal methods like blast fishing told The Freeman he gets his supply of the chemical compound from a source in Talisay, whom he refused to identify.

There are suspicions some explosives dealers are diverting some of their stocks to unauthorized buyers like illegal fishermen. -