Bomb thrown into LTO-6 compound

ILOILO CITY, Philippines — An improvised explosive device (IED) was hurled into the compound of the Land Transportation Office-Region 6 at Brgy. Quintin Salas in Jaro district of this city early morning the other day.

It was the third bomb-related incident in the city this week, the first of which was last Sunday at a private residence also in Jaro district and the second on the following day at the BIR office in Molo district, this city.

The M26 fragmentation hand grenade, embedded to a .60mm high explosive mortar, did not go off however and was found by an LTO-6 guard at around 5 a.m. at the doorstep of the agency’s public assistance and information center.

According to the Philippine Army’s Explosive and Ordnance Division, the EID could have caused big damage had it exploded, and that it was also possible that the EID was defective to fail to explode.

Senior Insp. Stephen Somosot, chief of the Jaro Police Station, admitted difficulty in identifying the perpetrators because of the absence of a witness who could describe them.

The incident came to police knowledge after an unidentified man called the Mandurriao Police Station saying that three men hurled “something” into the LTO-6 compound.

Mandurriao Police Station then informed the Jaro Police Station about the call. Members of the Community Police Action Center (COMPAC) in Brgy. Quintin Salas in turn responded to the scene.

Prior to that, the LTO-6 guard claimed to have heard a loud thud but that he saw no one, so he decided to wait until dawn to verify it.

LTO-6 regional director Gerald Camiña, also believed that the incident may not have been intended to inflict harm of injury among the employees. “Maybe, it was pure harassment,” he said, citing a number of possibilities.

The most probable cause could be the LTO-6’s strict campaign against overloading of trucks plying the Negros Occidental area, and this could have affected some businesses there, he said, adding that LTO-6 posted the highest number of apprehensions on different road violations at more than 93,000 in a year.

Last Sunday, a grenade was also lobbed and exploded at the house of 47-year-old Eduardo Ferrer at Evangelical Village, Jaro district of this city. Police recovered metallic fragments of an unknown type of hand grenade’s safety lever, parts of aluminum can and nails. The black Crosswind parked inside Ferrer’s residence was damaged.

Last Monday, the office of the Bureau of Internal Revenue in Molo district in this city had a bomb threat. One of its employees, Helen Dorongon, got a call from a Tagalog-speaking man claiming that a bomb will explode at the 2nd floor of the BIR building. But after a check, members of the Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team saw no trace of a bomb or any IED.