Police to secure potential witnesses in Cotabato campus blast

NORTH COTABATO, Philippines - The multi-sectoral provincial peace and order council  (PPOC) has mobilized its members to help investigate Sunday night’s seemingly related bombing and arson attack in a campus of a government school in Arakan town in the province.

At least 25 people were injured when an improvised explosive device went off inside the campus of the Cotabato Foundation College Science and Technology (CCFST) at Barangay Doroluman in Arakan Sunday night.

The victims were trying to put off a mysterious fire that hit a dormitory in the campus some 30 minutes before the bomb explosion.

North Cotabato Gov. Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza, presiding chairperson of the PPOC, said the provincial police are ready to provide protection to prospective witnesses willing to help identity the culprits.

Mendoza has condemned the bombing and called on the police to identity the bombers and prosecute them to the fullest extent of law.

Investigators are convinced Sunday night’s powerful bomb explosion inside the CFCST campus and the conflagration that hit the dormitory 30 minutes before were related.

Mendoza said the local government unit of Arakan is now helping investigate the incident.

The victims were trying to put off the fire that hit the dormitory when a powerful improvised explosive device exploded near a fire truck. Among the blast victims were firemen and responding police officers.

Chief Inspector Rolly Oranza of the Arakan municipal police told reporters several teachers, students and a school guard, were also wounded in the bombing.

“Bomb experts are still trying to determine what kind of explosive was used in the bombing,” he said.

The victims are undergouing treatment.

Oranza said empty containers with petroleum residue were found around the burnt building, a portion of which was used as a bunk house of members of the school’s security force.

Two improvised explosive devices were found last year in the CCFST campus, which were promptly defused by responding Army and police bomb disposal operatives.