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Thursday, November 01, 2007
Barangay hall in Naga City ‘bombed’
By Garry A. Cabotaje
With Jovy S. Taghoy & Tyra’nell E. Pille
CEBU CITY -- A motorcycle-riding man lobbed a grenade at the barangay hall of Inayagan, Naga City early Wednesday morning.
The blast shattered the building’s glass window and peppered its concrete wall with shrapnel.
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No one was injured in the incident. The tanod on duty left the three-storey barangay hall 15 minutes before the blast. Outgoing Inyagan Barangay Captain Narciso Tablate said the blast caused less than P10,000 in damages.
Cebu Provincial Police Office (CPPO) Director Carmelo Valmoria said the attack is not a cause for fear among people planning to visit the cemeteries Thursday.
“There was no intent to inflict injury because it was done at dawn. There is nothing to fear,” he told reporters Wednesday.
Valmoria said investigators are looking into all angles in the incident, including the possibility it was election-related.
He said he does not want to speculate on the motive for the attack and will wait for investigators to come up with a final report.
Valmoria ordered bomb disposal team leader SPO2 Ceferino Camacho to assist the Naga Police Station in the investigation.
Politics surfaced as a possible motive for the attack because it happened hours after Ricardo Larumbe was declared the new Inayagan village chief.
Larumbe got 1,158 votes to beat three other candidates, including former Presidential Anti-Crime Organized Task Force-Visayas chief Benjamin Paclibar.
Florido Badayos, who is supported by Tablate, was second with 823 votes. Paclibar came third with 654 votes while Epitacio Quimada was a far fourth with only 35 votes.
Naga election officer Ferdinand Hortelano said allegations had been raised earlier that some candidates in the area were capable of hiring armed goons. He said this was one reason why they considered the barangay an area of concern.
But Hortelano said there were no reports of election-related violence in last Monday’s election in the area. He said there were also no protests during the canvassing of votes.
Preliminary investigation indicated that a man on a motorcycle was seen pulling over along the highway minutes before residents were roused by a loud blast.
Both PO3 Elmer Opsima, the responding policeman, and Tablate said they believe that the grenade-thrower was targeting the barangay hall.
Authorities said the grenade hit the building’s concrete wall and landed on a vacant lot at the back of the nearby Mariz bakeshop.
The explosion created a five-inch deep, 12-inch circumference crater on the ground, barely seven meters away from the barangay hall.
The impact shattered the hall’s window glass on the first and second levels and pierced its concrete wall with shrapnel.
A Cebu PNP bomb squad team also responded to the scene and recovered the grenade’s safety lever.
The blast, however, could have inflicted severe damage on the building had the grenade landed on the open space conference room on third floor, police said.
Eduardo Lariego, the lone tanod on duty, said he considered himself lucky as he left the building to do the rounds outside, barely 15 minutes before the blast.
Tablate refused to say whether he considered the incident politically motivated, saying he will just leave it up to police to look into the motive.
He, however, surmised that it could have been the handiwork of a losing politician and carried out by the latter’s loyal supporters.
Tablate, who is on his last term as barangay captain, won as the number one councilor with 1,600 votes. (Sun.Star Cebu)
For more Philippine news, visit Sun.Star Iloilo. (November 1, 2007 issue)
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