Safety Measures
Meanwhile, authorities and the management of Weena, in a meeting last weekend, have agreed to implement some measures to prevent future attacks.
Tragic Scene. The spot in front of a hardware store in Bansalan where the bomb exploded. (davaotoday.com photo by Germelina A. Lacorte)
One such measure is the issuance of a memorandum to mayors and chiefs of police of every town along the Davao-Cotabato highway to help in providing security for passengers and buses.
Weena has likewise agreed that its buses would only load passengers from terminals. Often, passengers who are picked up along the way are not subjected to inspections.
Gamilla said, however, that bus drivers and conductors would still be allowed to pick up passengers along the way provided that the passengers are subjected to bodily searches. We gave instructions to our drivers to allow exceptions depending on the situation. But only on the condition that the passengers and their cargo shall be inspected first upon boarding, Gamilla said.
The bus company also would implement a “single door policy,” which means passengers can only board and disembark using the same door.
The company also promised add personnel . Instead of one conductor checking the passengers and their baggage, another person will conduct manual checking of the passengers as well as their cargos.
Military blamed
Meanwhile, some — like Defensor, the Bansalan resident — do not completely believe the military’s theory that the recent tragedy was the handiwork of terrorists and extortionists. She pointed out that senator-elect Antonio Trillanes IV, the naval officer, had once accused the military of being behind similar bombings in the past.
Who knows? Defensor asked. Nobody can tell.
In Grief. Davao City mayor Rodrigo Duterte consoles with the relatives of victims. (Contributed photo)
Jeppie Ramada, Bayan Muna regional coordinator for Southern Mindanao, shared Defensor’s views. He recalled the bombings of the Davao International Airport and the Sasa Wharf in 2003, which had been blamed on the military not just by Trillanes and his fellow Oakwood mutineers but by the Mindanao Truth Commission, which held a fact-finding mission on the bombings.
Ramada lamented that the government never investigated these allegations. Worst, he said, more than 10 bombings in different parts of Mindanao this year alone have remain unsolved.
He also pointed out that series of bombing incidents in General Santos City, Kidapawan City, and South Cotabato in March happened at the height of debates on the enactment of the anti-terror bill, which was later passed by Congress as the Human Security Act. The law will be implemented in July.
Ramda said the bombings could have been launched to justify the full implementation of the Human Security Act, pointing out the such bombings had taken place in the past in order to justify government measures.
He said this law would stifle legitimate dissent in the guise of fighting terrorism, an assertion shared by many of the country’s civil libertarians. Ramada said he feared that the spate of deadly bombings would increase and more people will die to justify government’s intensified anti-terror drive targeting progressive groups and revolutionary groups with legitimate issues against the government.
Ramada also denounced the presence of US soldiers and US bomb experts to investigate the bus bombing, saying it was a form of US meddling that this country can do without. Sending bomb experts, Huey helicopters, military equipment are forms of meddling that only increased the risk of our people becoming targets of their enemies, Ramada said. (Germelina A. Lacorte and Cheryll D. Fiel/davaotoday.com)
Terrorism
