Premonitions lead 2 cops to stop school bombing

TACURONG CITY – Two policemen who heeded a premonition saved lives Friday afternoon by preventing a suspected member of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) from rigging an explosive at the gate of a Catholic school here.

The would-be bomber killed himself instead when the bomb he was carrying went off prematurely as he tried to elude the lawmen.

The two policemen, PO3 Roel Paclibar and PO2 Nilo Freno, both assigned to the block where the Notre Dame of Tacurong for Girls is located, first noticed the slain bomber, Sammy Abubakar, suspiciously criss-crossing the vicinity of the school on board his motorcycle, carrying a large bag.

The Catholic school is owned by the Dominican congregation, which operates more than a dozen elementary and high schools in the South Cotabato-Sarangani-General Santos City (Socsargen) area.

Chief Inspector Raul Supiter, officer in charge of the city police office here, said Paclibar and Freno, after noticing the suspect’s suspicious movements, positioned themselves along the the road leading to the exclusive Catholic school for girls and the city’s cathedral.

"The suspect must have noticed the presence of the two policemen right away so he slowed down, immediately turned around, but got out of balance. As he tried to regain control of his motorcycle, the luggage he was carrying exploded," Supiter said, citing initial feedback from a dozen witnesses, among them barangay officials.

Paclibar and Freno – both known in the area as respectable and hardworking policemen – claimed they both had premonitions about Friday’s bungled bombing, which left two students, Fel Connie Esquejo and her cousin Julie Anne, slightly wounded.

The students, who sustained superficial shrapnel wounds on different parts of their bodies, were inside a store just meters away from where Abubakar’s bomb-packed motorcycle exploded.

Supiter said they found out that the motorcycle’s registration papers bore the name Sammy Abubakar as its owner. However, investigators also recovered from the slain bomber’s possessions a newly issued driver’s license naming him as Henry Fernandez of Bagua, an area notorious as a lair of lawless elements in Cotabato City.

Sources from the intelligence community of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division and the 301st Brigade said there are strong indications that Abubakar is indeed a member of the MILF.

Abubakar, according to the sources, hails from the Sultan Kudarat town of Maguindanao, and was even a neighbor of key MILF leaders residing there.

The bomb he was supposed to leave near the Catholic school, according to the military, was a "trademark" explosive of the MILF, identical to those used in earlier bombings in many parts of Central Mindanao.

Last Friday’s aborted bombing here happened a day after members of the Tacurong police command deactivated an incendiary explosive planted by still unidentified suspects inside the garments section of Fitmart Plaza department store, located in the city’s commercial district.

Supiter said the bomb, fashioned from a time-delayed blasting mechanism strapped to a container of a combustible substance, was set to explode at dawn Thursday, but was found Wednesday afternoon by vigilant department store workers.

"It was not designed to kill people. It was designed to set the establishment on fire. Fortunately, it was discovered and immediately defused," Supiter said.