COTABATO CITY – Police are still clueless on the identity of the woman who left the bomb that killed a child and injured 34 others in a crowded bus terminal in Cotabato City last Wednesday.
Cotabato City Mayor Muslimin Sema, chairman of the city peace and order council, said yesterday that while he was convinced the bombing, the city’s worst since January, was perpetrated by extortionists, he was not discounting the possibility that it could be a handiwork of terrorists.
Sema has offered a “cash incentive” for information that would lead to the arrest of the people responsible for the bombing at the Weena Bus terminal.
The bus terminal’s manager, Guinaid Adam, said he was certain it was him who was the real target of the bombing.
Adam escaped death, sustaining only shrapnel wounds in the head and was immediately discharged from the hospital.
Adam admitted that apart from extortion demands, he has been receiving threats on his life through text messages for ignoring letters asking for protection money from the company.
“Maybe the culprits are aware that I eat breakfast, lunch and supper everyday in that eatery,” said Adam, who resides in small quarters inside the terminal.
Sema has dismissed as “baseless” insinuations that the bombing was politically motivated.
He noted that Weena buses have long been an easy prey of extortionists.
“There have been many bombings of Weena buses already.”
The unidentified woman, disguised as a commuter, was said to have entered the eatery inside the terminal and even asked permission from its caretaker to leave a big bag that contained the explosive.
So powerful was the blast that it shattered the makeshift walls and the ceiling of the eatery, the glass panels of a food storage rack, two freezers and a portion of the concrete wall near the spot where the bomb went off.
“The bombing was perpetrated by people that do not fear God. In short, they belong to a satanic organization,” an irate Sema told The STAR.
Investigators said the bomb was composed of incendiary powder rigged to a battery-operated blasting device attached to a cellular phone, and packed with nails and jagged fragments of cast iron.
Sema said the city social welfare office is now attending to the needs of the victims injured in the blast. He assured that his office would also provide assistance to the family of five-year-old Adrill Tangao, who was killed in the explosion. – John Unson