Work stopped for about three hours in a 17-story office building in Global City, Taguig, where a bomb threat prompted an evacuation early Friday afternoon.
National Capital Region Police Office chief Director Leonardo Espina later declared it a hoax, saying whoever tried to sow panic in the area probably just wanted to revive fears over the May 31 explosion that damaged Two Serendra condominium and killed three people, also in Global City.
Taguig police deputy chief for operations Supt. Celso Rodriguez said Jenny Pagulayan, a call center employee working on the second floor of Net One Center, received a phone call around 1:54 p.m. from a man claiming there was bomb in the building.
The building administration ordered an evacuation and alerted the police, who then closed surrounding streets and conducted a search using bomb-sniffing dogs.
Rodriguez said the phone call was later traced to the Manila North Harbor area.
Arriving at the scene, Interior Secretary Mar Roxas said such prank calls were being traced as they constitute “a criminal offense.”
“It is worrying that we have countrymen who would cause these bomb scares,” Roxas said. Jaymee T. Gamil