Terrorists may target firecracker factories

CAMP OLIVAS, Pampanga – Terrorists might target about 200 firecracker and pyrotechnic factories in Bulacan and other parts of Central Luzon to cause widespread destruction before Christmas, a police official said yesterday.

Senior Inspector Braulio Pascua, chief of the Philippine National Police Firearms and Explosives Division in Central Luzon, said security should be beefed up around firecracker and pyrotechnic factories which have started to import tons of pyrotechnic materials from China.

"Terrorists normally prefer a big hit," he said. "If they hit, they are likely to make it devastating, and such factories are vulnerable."

Pascua said a grenade lobbed into a big firecracker factory could ignite tons of explosive materials and cause devastation over an area as wide as a kilometer in diameter.

"That was what happened years ago when a firecracker factory was accidentally ignited in San Jose del Monte in Bulacan," he said. "Parts of the bodies of the victims were found a kilometer away from where the blast occurred." — Ding Cervantes