INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
ILIGAN CITY — Five days into the month-long Diyandi festival here, police found an improvised explosive device inside a black backpack left unattended behind a stall of used clothings (ukay-ukay) across a commercial mall here.
A civilian reported the backpack being seen across the south wing Gaisano Mall along Consunji street here at 9:30 a.m. on Sunday, prompting the police to rush to the scene and investigate.
Police Major Felix Rabago Jr., commander of the city’s police station 5, said the four IEDs were wrapped inside a garbage bag but lacked several components to make it explode.
Police Col. Reinante delos Santos, city police director, said in a report the package must have been intended only to intimidate and create a scenario of panic among the people in Iligan City now celebrating the festivities that would culminate on the feast of the city’s patron saint on Sept. 29.
“There is a possibility that the incident was a diversionary tactics of the enemy to take away the attention of authorities from their targets,” he said.
An examining officer of the Explosives and Ordnance Division (EOD) said the recovered explosive materials did not have a power source to generate an explosion.
Besides, the triggering device consisting of a handheld radio, was not functional. One of the cellular phones did not even have a battery while the other one had no Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) card.
De los Santos said the chemical compound found inside the four canisters was not an Ammonium Nitrate Fuel Oil (ANFU) and there was no blasting cap found; hence, the recovered IED could not trigger an explosion.
He said the police were still studying the motive behind the planting of the incomplete IED in a crowded public market.
The month-long Diyandi festival is a thanksgiving celebration among the tri-people (Christian, Muslims and the Lumad) here that culminates on September 29, fiesta of the city’s patron St. Michael, the Arcangel.