Infighting, plays eyed in PETA blast

The police are looking at two possibilities in their investigation of last Sunday’s grenade explosion outside the building of the Philippine Education Theater Association (PETA) in Quezon City.

“There could be an internal squabble or there could be someone who did not want the group to stage its production that day,” Senior Superintendent Magtanggol Gatdula, chief of the Quezon City Police District, said in an interview yesterday. “But there is no definite lead yet.”

He issued the statement after PETA officials could not name anyone who would have the motive to lob the grenade.

“We’re a public service group and we don’t know of anyone who would have an axe to grind against us... We’re at a loss. We have no enemy,” PETA president Cecilia Garucho said in a separate interview.

Gatdula said police investigators are checking if anyone wanted the two scheduled performances of the play, Noli-Fili Dekada 2000, last Sunday not to push through. The grenade was thrown at 4:55 a.m. that day allegedly by a man on a motorcycle.

QCPD-Station 11 commander Superintendent Carlito Feliciano said if this was the motive, it could be that the one behind the explosion had something against the theater group’s plays, which he said usually have political message.

Garucho said while their productions have always had social relevance, they are not as radical as they used to be during the martial law years.

“That’s Noli and Fili (Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo that were staged last Sunday) of (Jose) Rizal. How controversial can that be?” she said.

Feliciano added that he has also requested a check on the property where the PETA building stands, hinting at a possible land dispute.

But Garucho maintained there is no infighting within their group and stressed that the property where their building stands is under PETA’s name.