Philippines heightens security after bus bombing
| • | Philippines president to make stop in Hawai'i |
By Paul Alexander
Associated Press
MANILA, Philippines — Bomb-sniffing dogs patrolled rail station entrances and police conducted random vehicle searches as officials stepped up security yesterday in Manila, shaken by the latest terrorist blast to hit the Philippines.
Seeking to ease the jitters, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo appealed for calm in a national radio and television address, saying the Philippines wouldn't be bullied.
"A few troublemakers with limited capabilities are trying to bully 80 million Filipinos into living in fear and terror," Arroyo said. "Let us not be cowed into submission."
The president then offered advice to the public: "Keep calm. Be alert," she said.
Her address followed a security meeting that was first scheduled for Monday after two bombs exploded Thursday in southern Zamboanga city, killing seven people and injuring 152.
But the meeting was quickly rescheduled when a powerful blast ripped through a bus late Friday in suburban Manila, killing two people and injuring more than 20.
It was the fourth deadly explosion in the Philippines in two weeks.
In her national address, the president said police have prevented additional attacks, but she did not provide details.
Arroyo's office announced stricter security measures, including random checks of vehicles, malls and other public places, and the deployment of 1,700 police trainees in the capital.
Police distributed leaflets with emergency phone numbers, warning the public to be on the lookout for suspicious packages as well as potential hiding places for bombs.
Ben Hur Abalos, mayor of suburban Mandaluyong, said security guards in shopping centers have been told to check incoming shoppers for ammonium nitrates, gunpowder or blasting caps or other materials that could be used in explosives.
National police chief Hermogenes Ebdane said investigators are trying to reassemble the device used in the bus blast from fragments. A cell phone was being tested for traces of nitrates to determine whether it was used to ignite the bomb.
Police intelligence chief Rodolfo Delfin said passengers said that just before the blast a woman and a man got off the bus and a cell phone rang. Authorities have a sketch of a man in his 20s described as a "potential suspect," Ebdane said.
No one has claimed responsibility for the bus bombing.
"This was definitely an act of terrorism," National Security Adviser Roilo Golez said in an interview with DZRH radio. "The definition of terrorism is a violent attack on civilians ... but who they (the terrorists) are, we do not know."
Golez earlier said the "manner of execution" of the bombing was similar to a bus bombing Dec. 30, 2000, one of five in a series of almost simultaneous blasts in the capital that killed 22 people and injured more than 100 others.
Fathur Rohman Al-Ghozi, an Indonesian and alleged member of Jemaah Islamiyah, a Muslim group with alleged links to al-Qaida, told police he helped plan the bombing series. He pleaded guilty to explosives charges in April and was sentenced to 10 to 12 years in prison.
