MANILA, Philippines—For the second day in a row, a call center in Quezon City received a bomb threat via text messaging Friday, leading the authorities to believe the pranks were from an insider.
The latest incident prompted the police to recommend that the Accenture issue a stern warning to pranksters among its employees.
“We believe it was an insider who sent the bomb threat, since the sender knew some information that only an insider would know,” said Superintendent Ramon Pranada, Cubao police station commander.
An accenture security officer received a text message at 4:45 a.m. Friday, saying, “I would like to inform you na may sasabog na bomba at exactly 8 a.m. sa loob ng Gateway Mall at Gateway 2.”
The message came from the same mobile phone—09279303728— that sent Thursday’s bomb threat, which was received at 5 a.m. by an Accenture human resource officer. Thursday’s text message said, “There will be bomb explosion at about 8 a.m. this date at Accenture.”
On both occasions, a team from the Explosives and Ordinance Division of the Quezon City Police District was deployed in the area but found nothing.
Pranada said both inspections were conducted discreetly as requested by the call center so as not to disrupt the operations and work of the employees.
Pranada said he believed the prankster was an insider as the message sender referred to the call center area as “Gateway 2,” which is only known by employees.
“We recommended to the management that they issue a memorandum to employees warning them against making bomb jokes or bomb threats, and to sanction these employees,” he said.
Pranada said the authorities were checking the mobile number used by the prankster and that they were looking into possible motives for the pranks.
Asked if he would deploy more policemen to the Gateway area, Pranada said it was up the management to request for more policemen to patrol the premises.
As of posting time, the mall is back to normal operations. With reports from Nestor Corrales