MAGUINDANAO, Philippines - Army bomb experts on Thursday destroyed about a ton of live explosive projectiles, home-made landmines and roadside bombs found in areas the military cleared from occupation by the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) in months past.
The explosives were collected and transported to the Army’s Camp Siongco in Datu Odin town in Maguindanao with the help of the Humanitarian Emergency Assistance and Relief Team (HEART) of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) and the Swiss Foundation for Mine Action.
The improvised explosive devices, dozens of live 40 millimeter shoulder-fire grenades, 60 and 81 MM mortar projectiles were safely detonated by piles in dug pits by ordnance experts led by Col. Bernie Langub, director-in-charge of the Division Training School of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division (ID).
Langub, who is a bomb disposal expert, said the explosives they destroyed were enough to flatten buildings grouped together in a block.
Some of the explosives set off in a spot at the 6th ID’s training school were unexploded bombs dropped by military aircrafts on BIFF camps and 105 Howitzer canon shells fired at enemy positions by Army detachments on strategic hills in Maguindanao province.
Several rebel B-40 shoulder-fire anti-tank rockets, a signature weapon of the BIFF and the group from where it had splintered from, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), were also detonated by Langob and his men using disruption explosives detonated from a safe distance.
Major Gen. Edmundo Pangilinan, commander of the Army’s 6th ID, said he is thankful to the ARMM government and the Swiss volunteer mine clearing outfit for helping remove the explosives from open fields and in surroundings of peasant enclaves in Maguindanao.