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Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Blast at Palace grounds sets off huge security clampdown
MANILA - A loud explosion rocked the grounds of Malacañan Palace shortly after noon yesterday.
No casualties or damage was reported but a group of self-proclaimed military rebels vowed an “explosive protest” against President Arroyo.
Police forensics tests showed the blast was caused by a lacquer thinner placed inside a trash bin, Presidential Chief of Staff Michael Defensor said, discounting any link between the explosion and the threat issued by the presumed rebels.
“This is just a chemical reaction, not an improvised explosive device,” Defensor told reporters, adding it could have been set off by a lit cigarette butt tossed into a plastic garbage can that was shredded by the blast.
A second explosive device went off on a street in Manila’s financial district of Makati, wounding a boy.
Grenade
And a grenade with its safety pin missing was disarmed by police after it was found in a garbage bin outside the govern-ment’s National Printing Office in northern Manila.
“A group of children found the (explosive device) and they played with it,” police investigator James San Jose said on radio dzRH.
It was unclear if the two other cases were related to the blast outside Mabini Hall at the palace grounds.
A group describing itself as “reformist” military officers claimed in a statement to news agencies that it “started today a series of explosive protest activities that will continue and even escalate until Gloria Arroyo leaves the presidency.”
The blast at the Malacañan palace compound interrupted a lunch hosted by the President in another section of the compound.
Police and presidential security guards sealed off the area and military explosive-sniffing dogs were brought in.
Defensor said it was business as usual for the President, “but I’m sure as a person she’s worried about the situation.”
The President, however, called an emergency meeting among her “internal staff” and ordered a thorough investigation of the blast.
No traces
Brig. Gen. Delfin Bangit, chief of the Presidential Security Group, dismissed the explosion as that of a bomb as experts and K9 dogs found no explosive materials or traces of it on pieces of the garbage can.
Investigators, though, collected pieces of the receptacle for scrutiny to determine what caused the blast.
Armed Forces Chief of Staff General Generoso Senga said yesterday that the authorities were monitoring unidentified people trying to ”destabilize” the government.
Earlier this year the government said there have been unsuccessful efforts by unknown groups to recruit military units to launch a coup against Arroyo.
She survived a brief military rising by more than 200 soldiers who took over Manila’s financial district in July 2003. Last year the president also survived an impeachment complaint launched by the opposition, which accused her of stealing the May 2004 election.
The group of presumed military rebels demanded the immediate resignation of the cabinet “or they shall become part of the explosive protest that will increase in degree in the coming days”.
Meanwhile fugitive military officer Lawrence San Juan, who escaped last month while on trial for the 2003 mutiny, said his group “will take action” before the end of the month.
Interviewed by Manila-based Radio Mindanao Network, the army lieutenant claimed his group was in talks with 10 active-duty generals but gave no details.
Defensor denounced the rebel soldiers for destabilizing the government when the Philippines is focused on rescue efforts for some 1,800 people buried under a massive landslide in Southern Leyte. (AFP/Sunnex)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (February 21, 2006 issue)
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