Doctors, pharmaceutical representatives, and other members of the health community on Tuesday morning gathered at the blast site in Limketkai Center for a Holy Eucharistic celebration for the victims of the bombing incident last July 26. PHOTO BY CAI PANLILIO / INQUIRER MINDANAO
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY–Members of the medical community have banded together to call for justice for those killed in Friday’s bombing at a restaurant here last Friday.
The death toll in the explosion rose to eight on Monday with 46 people injured after a bomb went off at Kyla’s Bistro, where some delegates of a convention of the Philippine College of Chest Physicians were having a night out.
Most of those killed and injured were either physicians or pharmaceutical representatives.
In a Eucharistic Mass celebrated at the blast site for the victims on Tuesday morning, doctors and medical representatives wore white and tied black arm bands, as a symbol of mourning, as well as a call for justice for their fallen colleagues.
Dr. Trisha Obrero, president of the College of Physicians for Northern Mindanao, expressed outrage over what happened.
“We are sad, we are angry, we are hurt, we are ashamed that this happened in our city,” she said.
Obrero said the only way that the medical community can move on is to make sure that their colleagues did not die in vain.
“We do not only want to know who did it, but we want to know why, so we can prevent it from happening again,” she said in between tears.
Anthony del Fierro, a pharmaceutical representative who has covered the city for 17 years, expressed anger as well, saying that the bombing incident was “senseless” because innocent lives were taken.
“The victims have families and children who still need them … the best thing that we can do for them is to offer prayers for strength in this time of sorrow,” he said.
Four days have passed since the incident, but the tension and fear that people feel has not dwindled.
With this, Obrero urged the medical community to go back to work so they can continue to heal the sick. She also urged her colleagues to put on the black arm band for a whole week to symbolize their state of mourning.
On Monday, police released a computerized facial composite of the suspect in the bombing.
Supt. Michael John Deloso, chief of the City Investigative and Detective Management Branch of the Cagayan de Oro City Police Office (COCPO), said the computerized facial composite of the suspect was based on description of witnesses interviewed by investigators.
Deloso presented two versions of the composite–one with the suspect wearing a baseball cap and eyeglasses and the other with no cap and eyeglasses.
He said some witnesses saw the suspect with his cap and eyeglasses on and some saw him without.
But Deloso said all the witnesses agreed there was only one person who left the bag that later turned out to be where the bomb was placed.