Restaurant manager killed, 4 hurt in Cotabato blast

COTABATO CITY, Philippines – A restaurant manager was killed while four others were injured in one of two powerful explosions that rocked the city Tuesday while local Muslims were preparing for yesterday’s start of the Ramadan.

Army intelligence officials believed the outlawed Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) was behind the bombings in retaliation for its heavy losses in encounters with government troops in Pikit, North Cotabato and Saidona town in Maguindanao over the weekend.

Reynaldo Pascua, manager of the roadside Cafe Florencio here, died at the Cotabato Regional Medical Center while being treated for shrapnel wounds sustained in the blast.

Pascua was inside the restaurant attending to customers when a shoulder-fired 40 mm grenade projectile exploded inside the establishment, which investigators said was apparently fired from a distance.

Four other diners – off-duty Army soldier Cornelio Inocentes Jr., and civilians James Bryan Fernando, Aileen Coquia and Lynnette Guerra – sustained shrapnel wounds.

“It’s the start of Ramadan and they (BIFF) have declared openly that they will be doing all these atrocities,” said Lt. Col. Custodio Parcon, commander of the Marine Battalion Landing Team 1.

“They made the declaration that they will conduct atrocities not only in Cotabato but all over Central Mindanao,” he added.

Parcon said Tuesday’s explosion was just an isolated incident.

He said they are prepared to thwart any threat by the BIFF, which has vowed to sabotage the peace talks between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

City police chief Senior Superintendent Rolen Balquin said there is an assumption that the BIFF could be responsible for the latest bomb attacks here, but investigators have no evidence yet implicating the group.

The restaurant bombing was preceded by an explosion of the same type of grenade projectile, believed launched from an M-79 or an M-203 grenade rifle, at a vacant lot along Maara street. No one was reported killed or injured in the blast, but the incident triggered panic among villagers.

Tuesday night’s twin bombings came less than 24 hours after two unidentified men on a motorcycle together set off a low-level explosive fashioned from live shotgun shells behind a Jollibee fastfood outlet here. – With Roel Pareño, Alexis Romero, Jaime Laude