NBI probes LRT firecrackers courier

An explosive expert of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) yesterday urged the police to further investigate the explosives recovered from a passenger of the Light Rail Transit (LRT) in Caloocan City last Friday afternoon, since the items seized might not be firecrackers since it could caused a huge explosion and create damage as wide as 20 meters in radius.

NBI Special Investigator 4 Romeo Cotingjo, of the NBI-Explosive Ordnance Division (EOD), said probers might have recovered suspicious explosives from the 21-year-old Bernie Siguenza, of Barangay Sta. Cruz, Buhi, Camarines Sur.

Cotingjo and four other NBI agents arrived an hour earlier than the police investigators at the LRT terminal near the Bonifacio Monument in Caloocan, but the suspect and recovered items were taken to Camp Crame for laboratory tests.

Initial police reports showed that only firecrackers were found in Siguenza’s bag after he passed through security inspection at the LRT entrance. Seized were three pieces of super lolo and eight sachet of watusi.

But Cotingjo said the NBI team saw a bottle, believed filled with black powder, five pieces of mitsa or wick which were detached from five dynamite sticks. The NBI agents have marked the items as evidence before the police arrived.

They would have subjected the seized items to laboratory tests at the NBI to confirm if they were real explosives, but the police took custody of Siguenza and the evidence.

Siguenza said he bought the fireworks in Bulacan and was on his way home to celebrate New Year’s Eve in Camarines Sur.

Before the PNP arrived, "I told the LRT management that I have to bring the items to the laboratory because they were very dangerous explosives. They were not just pyrotechnics."

He said if the bag exploded on board the train, it is powerful enough to destroy at least three to five coaches filled with passengers. The damage would have spanned some 20 meters.

The NBI, composed of the EOD and Reaction Arrest and Interdiction Division (RAID),proceeded to the LRT Monumento station at around 3 p.m. when RAID Executive Officer Henry de Vera learned that security guards found explosives from Siguenza’s backpack. The PNP arrived about an hour later. – Evelyn Macairan