Another strong blast rocks Philippine port

From the Gulf Today (Aug 3): Another strong blast rocks Philippine port

A powerful explosion believed to have come from an improvised bomb rocked a port on the island province of Masbate in the Visayas even as the Philippine National Police (PNP) placed Metro Manila on “heightened alert” to prevent a repetition of the car bombing in Mindanao that killed 10 people and seriously wounded five others.

Captain Joash Pramis, the spokesman of an Army division, reported the explosion occurred late on Wednesday night at the port of Masbate’s capital city of Masbate where mostly fishing boats and a vessel from the Philippine Coast Guard were moored.

Fortunately, no one was wounded in the Masbate blast that came 24 hours after the a passenger van driven by a “foreigner” who could not speak Filipino or English and believed loaded with home-made bombs exploded near a military checkpoint in Lamitan City in Basilan on Tuesday morning, according to Pramis.

Pramis added no group or individual has come out to admit the bombing but security officials said they believe the attack was the handiwork of the communist New People’s Army (NPA) operating in Masbate.
On Thursday, the PNP also placed Metro Manila, composed of 15 cities and one town with a total population of 12 million, under “heightened alert” to obviate the possibility of a car bomb attack similar to that on Basilan.

The same alert was raised over the whole of troubled Mindanao, including Davao City, the hometown of President Rodrigo “Rody” Duterte.

“We should always be ready, prepared here in Metro Manila with what happened in Lamitan City,” said Chief Superintendent Guillermo Eleazar, the head of the PNP Metro Manila regional command.

“That is the reason,” Eleazar said, “why we are upgrading our alert status for us to be prepared. We don’t want a similar attack in Metro Manila.” He explained this meant the deployment of additional police beat patrols and intensification of intelligence-gathering to monitor any threats that may be carried out in Metro Manila.

But Eleazar assured that so far, they have not received any “credible” report about a possible attack in Metro Manila Meanwhile, police reported they have identified the owner of the passenger van, based on the engine number of the vehicle they had recovered from the scene.

Police said the owner appeared to be a former “barangay” (village) chairman of the town of Hadji Mohammad Ajul in Basilan, who will be invited for questioning to shed light on the case.

http://gulftoday.ae/portal/5d5b9a26-e383-4b37-85d6-f140a934549e.aspx