Authorities inspect an abandoned school bag in San Francisco High School in Quezon City after a bomb scare gripped the institution on Wednesday, January 25, 2023. (Photo from QCPD)
MANILA, Philippines — Another school was rattled by a bomb threat in Quezon City, which authorities later discovered was nothing more than a student’s school bag.
The Quezon City Police District (QCPD), in a report, confirmed that a bomb scare gripped the San Francisco High School along Misamis Street in Bago Bantay on Wednesday afternoon.
The school principal reportedly received an alarming message from John Keven Mangahas.
“May mga teroristang nakapasok sa school niyo at maglagay sila ng mga bomba sa building. Paalisin niyo na lahat ng mga estudyante bago iyan sumabog. Madami mamamatay na kabataan,” the message read.
(Terrorists have entered your school and planted a bomb in your building. Evacuate your students before it explodes. Many of them will die.)
A school teacher also discovered an abandoned bag near the stairway of their senior high school building, according to the QCPD.
“To verify the report, the responders arrived at the location and secured the perimeter. All students and teachers were safely evacuated,” it said.
The district’s explosive ordinance disposal (EOD) unit inspected the bag, which, the QCPD said, “turned out to be a school bag with notebooks and a lunch box of a school student.”
It was only on Monday when a bomb scare hit the New Era Elementary School in Quezon City.
According to the Philippine National Police, this was promptly checked and cleared of explosives, but probers are still trying to determine its possible cause and source.