Fire engine and ambulance sirens cut shrill swaths through the early afternoon traffic and a Humvee with a mounted caliber .50 machine gun manned by Filipino soldiers stood guard at the embassy gates.
News crews and nearly 100 uniformed and smiling police officers from various Manila police units, including the crowd dispersal squad, secured the embassy’s other entrances and exits along Roxas Boulveard.
A strip of yellow crime-scene tape was strung across one of the embassy’s two main wrought-iron gates as a white Chevrolet SUV with diplomatic plates idled nearby, presumably to "evacuate US Ambassador Francis Ricciardone from the site of the incident."
Some motorists and passersby with handheld camcorders stopped to film what they must have thought was a terrorist attack.
But everything was just a drill.
At 2 p.m. yesterday, the Western Police District (WPD), Department of Health (DOH) and the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) conducted a "US Embassy bombing" drill, which alarmed some people and frayed the nerves of motorists stuck in traffic for several blocks.
WPD director Chief Superintendent Pedro Bulaong laughed off speculation that the bombing was real and that authorities used the drill as a cover-up.
"It was the US Embassy that invited us to have this drill," Bulaong told The STAR.
The drill, he said, was meant to evaluate the preparedness and ability of the US Embassy and concerned agencies to respond to such an emergency.
Asked to evaluate the WPD’s performance in the exercise, Bulaong admitted that Manila’s Finest could still improve its "coordination."
"It’s the first time that we did this. Medyo nagkahiyaan kanina (it was a bit awkward earlier), because this is the first time we did this," Bulaong said.
The southbound lane of Roxas Boulevard was closed to traffic from 2 to 3 p.m., and heavy traffic built up on the boulevard’s northbound lane.
What really happened was this: An improvised "bomb" was set off behind the seawall near the embassy. Americans and Filipinos within the vicinity of the "explosion" were either "killed on the spot" or "injured." Two DOH ambulances and two fire trucks were "dispatched" to the "emergency" site.
Bulaong said the drill was planned to achieve maximum realism, down to the detonation of explosives behind the seawall and the red paint smeared on the "victims."
Coralou Casuela, 24, who was with her parents, said visa applicants had been told about the drill and were briefed on what to do when the bomb drill began.
Despite the briefing, Casuela’s mother said she could not help but scream when she heard the "bomb" explode "because it was very loud."
Casuela commended the authorities for conducting the drill, adding that the exercise was no inconvenience. "It was necessary."
The tightened security comes in the wake of terrorist threat warnings issued by the US government.
It will be recalled that the US government and its embassies have been the target of several terrorist attacks, the worst of which was the Sept. 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington that killed about 3,000 people.
In August 1998, the US embassy and consular offices in Dar-es Alam and Tanzania, Kenya were bombed by terrorists.
Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terrorist network and the Southeast Asia-based Islamist group Jemaah Islamiyah have both targeted US government and private sector businesses and interests, as well as marked other targets associated with western countries such as Norway, Australia and the United Kingdom.