No bags and boxes allowed in Davao church premises

Churchgoers in Davao are no longer allowed to carry bags and boxes into churches throughout the city following the attack on a cathedral in Jolo, Sulu province, on Sunday that killed more than 20 people and injured nearly 100 others.

Purses only

In an advisory to priests and supervisors of public chapels issued on Tuesday, Davao Archbishop Romulo Valles, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP),  said that “until further notice” churchgoers in the city would no longer be allowed to bring bags, backpacks, knapsacks, boxes, cartons and the like into church premises.

Small purses, however, are exempted from the ban.

Valles said the security measure was adopted “upon the advice” of the Philippine National Police due to the “current peace and order situation” and the “threat of violence” in Mindanao.

The city government issued a similar advisory, prohibiting people from carrying backpacks into places of worship.

The prohibition came two days after twin blasts hit the Cathedral of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Jolo, killing 21 people and wounding nearly 100 others.

Early on Wednesday, a grenade was lobbed into a mosque in Zamboanga City, killing two Islamic preachers and wounding four others.

It is unclear whether the CBCP will expand the Davao prohibition to churches in other parts of the country, especially Metro Manila where hundreds of thousands of Catholics go to church nearly every day. —Reports from Jovic Yee, Krissy Aguilar and Orlando B. Dinoy