Davao City,Philippines – Despite the city’s “Culture of Security” to ensure peace and order, a lawyer’s vehicle was attacked by an improvised bomb on Thursday morning.
The explosion happened in in front of a law firm of Attorney Alberto Magulta on the ground floor of One Oasis Condominium along Ecoland Drive. His Honda CRV had slight damage, and no one was injured in the incident.
But the Davao City Police (DCPO) ruled out that the explosion is a terrorism-related attack as he said no threats were monitored in the city.
DCPO Director Col. Alberto Lupaz told reporters that the attack could be harassment on the vehicle’s owner, Atty. Magulta, who told police that he is receiving threats related to “high-profile cases” he is handling in Socsksargen Region 12.
“Ang among tan-aw ani pagpanghuraw lang gyud. Wala gyud ni intentional gyud nga naa gyud kuan kay murag sa likod ra man gani gibutang gyud. (We believe this is just harrasment. That’s the intent, that’s why the bomb was planted at the back of the car.) ” Lupaz said.
Police said they have obtained CCTV footage that identified two persons in their 20s leaving an object beneath Magulta’s vehicle which exploded within five minutes later.
Reporters tried to interview Magulta but authorities cordoned his office for safety and investigation purposes.
The DCPO’s forensic and K9 unit is still investigating and collecting fragments to determine the type of IED used during the explosion. The authorities said no casualties during the incident.
“They initially said they recovered mortar, but we need to determine that as they need to piece together the fragments,” Lupaz said.
Despite the result of the initial investigation, both DCPO and Task Force Davao said they will be adjusting their security protocol which is causing public alarm.
“We will be making adjustments, because of this incident although it’s a work-related attack but there’s a big possibility they can do this in broad daylight, so we need to adjust our security measures,” Lupaz said in Bisaya.
Furthermore, Task Force Davao (TFD) commander Col. Darren Comia said a stricter border points security measure will be implemented in connection to the recent incident in the city, and will coordinate with its security counterpart in Region 12 to find more evidence and information related to the suspects.
Col. Comia is eyeing the additional propagation of the culture of security to the public to prevent such incident to happen again.(davaotoday.com)
car, davao city, explosion
