3 tons of chemicals used for making explosives seized

Police arrested yesterday four men and seized three tons of ammonium nitrate they were unloading reportedly without a permit at a warehouse in Lucena City before dawn.

The shipment of ammonium nitrate — a crystalline salt used for fertilizer and explosives — was supposed to be shipped from Bataan to Taguig City, police said.

Instead, the load was delivered to a fertilizer warehouse in Lucena City in Quezon.

Maj. Jose Broso, spokesman for the military’s Southern Luzon Command, said the shipment — 120 sacks of ammonium nitrate, each weighing 25 kilos — was enough to flatten a whole city block.

"These chemicals were also used by the (communist New People’s Army rebels) in making land mines," one Lucena police officer said. "With this amount, it can destroy large bridges. It can even level the Manila Hotel to the ground."

Also seized from the men were two drums of potassium cyanide – used in illegal cyanide fishing – and 1,000 kilos of potassium nitrate, Broso said. The substance was contained in 40 25-kilo sacks.

Potassium nitrate, called salitre in Filipino, is used for curing meat but is also a component in black powder, matches and fireworks.

Police officers caught the suspects unloading the cargo that was consigned to businesswoman Virginia Letran, owner of Mafel Marketing based in Taguig.

The suspects were arrested when they could neither produce a permit authorizing them to transport the cargo nor explain why it was transported to Lucena if the consignee was in Taguig.

The Letran family could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Police Inspector Antonino Maglinao, Lucena police intelligence chief, said they were tipped off about the shipment of the chemicals by a concerned citizen, whom he refused to identify.

The arrests came as officials stepped up security in the wake of five bombings that have killed 21 people this month in the Philippines.

Authorities have yet to link any groups to the attacks, but security officials have said some of them may have been staged by the Abu Sayyaf bandit group.

Ammonium nitrate has not been listed as an ingredient in the recent attacks. But the material was used in a bombing that killed nearly 200 people this month in an attack on a nightclub on the Indonesian resort island of Bali.

Police plan to charge the four men with violating a law against transporting and selling fertilizer without a permit, said Romualdo Uy, a senior police officer in Lucena.

Senior Superintendent Geary Barias, chief of the Philippine National Police firearms and explosives division, said they might revoke Letran’s license for violating regulations. She also faces possible criminal charges.

He said Letran should have notified authorities before transporting the substances, which should only be sold to licensed buyers.

"They should be escorted by police in transporting this kind of chemicals," Maglinao said.

Barias added that might also file charges of illegal possession of explosives against one Harry Valera for buying the cargo without a license.

The owner of the warehouse, who is also being questioned by the police, said the substance was to be sold to mango farmers as fertilizer. But police reacted cautiously to that claim.

Ammonium nitrate also can be an ingredient for explosives used by fishermen to shock and kill fish.

"It could be possible they are using these as fertilizers and (for) illegal fishing, but we cannot discount also the possibility that these ingredients are being used in making bombs," Broso said. — Paolo Romero, Christina Mendez, Arnell Ozaeta