Two workers were hurt after one of them struck, while digging a hole, an improvised explosive device (IED) buried in the ground on the University of the Philippines campus in Diliman, Quezon City.
Insp. Noel Sublay, chief of the Quezon City Police District’s Explosives and Ordnance Division, identified the victims as Reynaldo Natividad, 44, and Faustino Valencia, 38. Natividad was rushed to East Avenue Medical Center for shrapnel wounds all over his body while Valencia was treated at the University Health Service, or UP Infirmary.
No students were injured as there were no classes on the campus.
According to Sublay, the explosion caused by a pillbox happened at 2:20 p.m. at the corner of Roxas Avenue and Fernandez Street near the College of Social Sciences and Philosophy. The two workers from the Campus Maintenance Office were digging a hole to install a lamppost when Natividad hit something buried in the ground which exploded. Shrapnel from the blast also injured Valencia who was standing a meter away.—Julie M. Aurelio