Kidapawan mayor urges traders to secure malls to avert attacks

COTABATO CITY – The mayor of Kidapawan City yesterday urged his constituent-businessmen to employ more security guards, convinced that Thursday’s bombing of a shopping mall in the area could have been prevented if the establishment was tightly guarded.

A worker of the KMCC Mall was killed while six others were injured in the blast, Kidapawan City’s second in less than two months.

In a meeting with members of Kidapawan City’s business community, Mayor Rodulfo Gantuangco, chairman of the city peace and order council, said a deeper probe on the incident showed that security was lax in the surroundings of the establishment, particularly at its entrance and at the periphery of its baggage deposit counter.

“The security measure we need to adopt must include the setting up of security lights in the vicinity of establishments, setting up of security cameras, and security gadgets to prevent possible intrusion by terrorists and criminal elements,” Gantuangco told businessmen present in the emergency security meeting.  

Preceding Thursday’s bombing of the KMCC Mall in Kidapawan City were two separate bombings on Oct. 5 near a commercial district not far away from its public market, leaving a 10-year-old girl dead and causing injuries to 39 others.

Gantuangco said he is certain only one group could have perpetrated the recent bombings in Kidapawan City, as indicated by the identical types of bombs used in the attacks.

The Kidapawan City police have confirmed that the IEDs used in the bombings were fashioned from live mortar projectiles attached to improvised blasting mechanisms attached to cellular phones.

Chief Inspector Leo Ajero, director of the Kidapawan City police, said they have filed criminal charges against Alex Takulin Sanduyugan, 20 and a companion, Muhaliden Sulaik Hassan, 20, who were arrested in connection with Thursday’s bombing of the KMCC Mall.

Witnesses have positively identified the duo as the last to have left a bag, believed to have contained the explosives, at the baggage counter of the mall.

Policemen recovered from the suspects a claim stub of the baggage they deposited at the baggage deposit booth of the establishment.

Ajero said police agents also recovered from the suspects’ hideout various materials used in the fabrication of IEDs, among them dried blasting powders kept in sealed plastic bags.