Bomb defused inside North Cotabato hotel

COTABATO CITY — Lawmen defused the other night a homemade bomb rigged by suspected Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels inside a hotel in the nearby North Cotabato town of Midsayap, the seventh bombing attempt in the area in two months.

Senior Inspector Raul Supiter, Midsayap police chief, said the bomb was left by two men inside a room of the Roadside Inn located along the national highway.

The bomb was fashioned from a sealed steel cylinder filled with octane fuel and rigged with an improvised battery-operated blasting device.

Supiter said alert roomboys of the hotel sought police assistance after sensing that the suspects, clad in denim pants and dark jackets, hurriedly left the hotel, without the big bag one of them carried when they checked in.

"It was for the vigilance of the roomboys that we were able to defuse the bomb promptly," Supiter said.

He said the bomb, planted under a bed, could have triggered a big fire had it exploded.

Meanwhile, Datu Michael Sinsuat, mayor of nearby Upi town, cited reports that a political group was allegedly behind two kidnapping incidents in his jurisdiction to embarrass his leadership. — John Unson