Bomb probe: PNP calls in FBI

The Philippine National Police (PNP) is seeking the help of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to identify and determine the source of a blue powder found in the improvised bombs that have created a scare in Metro Manila over the past week.

PNP chief Director General Leandro Mendoza has also ordered the creation of a task force to conduct a stock inventory of establishments licensed to manufacture and distribute explosive materials.

Mendoza said local ordnance and bomb disposal experts were baffled by the blue substance found in some of the improvised bombs planted in various parts of Metro Manila. The devices were planted in an apparent attempt to create instability and sow anxiety among residents.

The PNP chief noted that the purported explosives, mostly mortar projectiles, did not have blasting caps that would set them off.

An obscure group calling itself the Indigenous People’s Federal State Army (IPFSA) has claimed responsibility for planting the fake explosives that triggered the bomb scare.

Mendoza said the absence of nitrate in the dud bombs bolstered the PNP’s theory that the bombs were not meant to explode and cause injury or death.

Meanwhile, the projected on-site inspection of stocks of dynamite and other explosive materials in the warehouses of licensed firms was designed to determine the source of the materials used.

Civil Security Group chief Director Reynaldo Varilla said Mendoza ordered the inventory of explosives in the local market following reports that four to seven tons of explosives were missing from the warehouses of at least two licensed distributors.

"The initial records verification made by his unit on authorized industrial firms showed that there are no missing explosives and explosive materials insofar as existing inventories are concerned," Varilla said.

Citing the result of an inspection conducted by the Firearms and Explosives Division, Varilla said all inventories are intact at the warehouses of two dealers based in Central Visayas where a huge shipment of explosives was bought by suspected terrorist, Indon Fathur Rohman Al-Ghozi who was arrested in Quiapo last Jan. 15.

Security tightened in Cotabato City

An Army battalion was deployed in strategic spots of Cotabato City to thwart attempts by the so-called Indigenous People’s Federal State Army (IPFSA) to sow instability in the city.

It was in Cotabato where the IPFSA, a creation of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), planted the first fake bomb fashioned out of an 81-mm. mortar projectile, and distributed manifestos calling for federalism in the country.

Troops from the 8th Marine Battalion Landing Team were also patrolling the city perimeter over the past week to prevent the IPFSA and the dreaded Pentagon kidnap gang from carrying out their nefarious activities.

Col. Essel Soriano, commander of the Army-led Task Force Cotabato, said Cotabato City Mayor Muslimin Sema has enjoined the city’s barangay officials to help ensure the safe observance of Holy Week.

Soriano said more than a dozen Simba tanks were also dispatched to secure vital installations and public places in the city.

"This is just to ensure that we are one step ahead in our security preparations," Soriano said.

Elements of the 6th Ordnance and Explosives Detachment (OED) of the local police have also been patrolling the city with bomb-sniffing dogs to detect planted bombs.

Capt. Ferdinand Escalante, chief of the 6th OED, said all of the bombs they have defused during the past weeks contained mortar and grenade projectiles, but lacked blasting caps.

"Even so, we’re not taking any chances because if these people can acquire this kind of ordnance provisions ... they can also harm people if they really intended to," Escalante said.

Sema said members of the local Muslim religious community here have also been helping the police and the Task Force Cotabato monitor the activities of strange people in the barangay level.

A raid conducted by joint elements of the military and the police on a slum area in Quezon City on Tuesday netted a suspect in the series of bomb scares.

PNP spokesman Senior Superintendent Leonardo Espina identified the suspect as Eleno Akmad Umpar, 20, a native of Marawi City, and a suspected member of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).

Umpar was arrested by a team from the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) and the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (ISAFP) that swooped down on a compound of Muslim traders on San Miguel street in Payatas district, Quezon City.

Espina clarified, however, that the police are still conducting a background check on Umpar, who was caught with an unlicensed caliber .38 revolver and is being held for illegal possession of firearms.

"We are still trying to determine his possible link in the spate of bomb scares," Espina said, adding that nine other individuals were also held for questioning during the raid but were later released for lack of evidence.

Central Police District (CPD) intelligence unit head Chief Inspector Anthony Rodolfo said the raid was aimed at 11 individuals who were allegedly involved in the bomb scares last week.

"We received information that the people involved came from this place and so we conducted a surveillance operation," Rodolfo told ABS-CBN television.

"We launched an action at dawn but unfortunately we got only one out of our 11 targets," he added.

CPD director Chief Superintendent Rodolfo Tor clarified, however, that they are not discounting the possibility that Umpar was connected to any extremist group.

Police failed to confirm if Umpar matched any of the three composite sketches which the authorities gathered from witnesses and security video footage from one of the places where the bombs were planted.

At the same time, Espina said the police doubted the credibility of IPFSA which owned up to the planting of bombs in at least eight places in Metro Manila. None of the explosives went off.

Espina also dismissed as a "copy cat" crime the bomb that was planted but defused by police along the expressway in Carmona, Cavite on Monday.

He said they suspected that breakaway groups of the MNLF or MILF may be behind the bomb scares and were only using IPFSA as a cover so that it could pursue peace talks with the government. - With John Unson