FOR LACK of a proper facility for their safekeeping, vintage bombs are laid on the pavement next to a grotto of the Virgin Mary at the office of the Manila Police District’s bomb disposal team. PHOTOS BY JOVIC YEE
The men of the Manila Police District’s (MPD) bomb squad risk life and limb in every operation to ensure the public’s safety. Yet their very office is virtually a ticking time bomb that can endanger people in surrounding establishments, including a school and a hospital.
The MPD Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) section, located beside the district headquarters on UN Avenue is where recovered explosives—mostly vintage World War II bombs unearthed at construction sites—are kept.
But here lies the problem: To this day, the EOD unit itself doesn’t have a proper bomb storage facility. Hence the old rusting bombs just lie exposed like oversized earth-encrusted potatoes in front of the office.
Near parked motorbikes
Sometimes motorbikes are parked next to the bombs, which are laid out—as though for added irony—near a statue of Virgin Mary.
“It is definitely a hazard,” said SPO3 Modesto Pagaran, the EOD deputy chief.
THIS year’s yield of assorted vintage bombs so far.
Over a dozen duds are currently in the unit’s “safekeeping,” which include a 75-mm projectile dug up at the St. Jude Church compound near Malacañang on Monday, and a 250-lb “general purpose” bomb.
If on some unlucky day the bombs are set off by heat, friction or shock, they could unleash enough firepower to damage surrounding buildings within a three-kilometer radius, Pagaran said. That area would cover Araullo High School, Medical Center Manila and the UN Avenue station of the Light Rail Transit (LRT1).
“It looks disorganized but that’s one way to avert potential tragedy,” Pagaran said. “If we piled it up in a pyramid setup, there are more chances for a sympathetic detonation”—or when a bomb explodes due to shock waves caused by an earlier blast.
Annual disposal
In May, an explosion hit and caused a big fire at an EOD building of the Philippine Army in Fort Bonifacio, Taguig City. Three officers died of severe burns days later.
Pagaran said the bombs are actually disposed of annually under the supervision of the Logistics Support Service’s EOD division in Camp Crame, but the undertaking costs about P500,000.
Supt. Edwin Ellazar, deputy chief of the Logistics Support Service’s EOD division, said his office had been pushing for the setup of bomb storage facilities since 2008.
Pagaran said talks for the construction of a safer facility for the MPD are going on, but for now his men just have to make do with the available space on UN Avenue.
But on a positive note, there had been no big bangs in the MPD-EOD office since the unit was formed four decades ago, he said.