2 held for dynamite fishing in Navotas

Police arrested two suspected dynamite fishermen off the shores of Navotas Tuesday night after their boat yielded a load of homemade bombs and blasting caps.

Superintendent Billy Beltran, Navotas police chief, named the suspects as Mining Llano, 32, and Floro de Luna, 49, both residents of Bagong Silang street, Barangay San Jose, Navotas.

The two were nabbed in the waters of Sitio Intermedio, Pulong Gasang, Navotas around 5 p.m. with explosives packed in four half-liter Coke bottles and 10 12-ounce Mountain Dew bottles with blasting caps.

Inspector Albert Arturo, chemist at the Scene of the Crime Operatives (SOCO) laboratory, said the white powder packed in the bottles was ammonium nitrate, an active ingredient in making explosives. The white powder turned blue after he applied diphenylamine (DPA), a standard reagent used in the examination of the substance.

Betran said Llano and De Luna have long been suspected of being engaged in dynamite fishing and were even suspected to be supplying other fishermen in the area with the explosives.

Station Investigation Division operatives stopped the suspects’ boat on a routine check and uncovered their cache of explosives.

Beltran said the unhampered distribution of these explosives could prove costly if these fall in the hands of terrorist elements. – Jerry Botial