Grenade found outside QC home of ex-judge

A grenade with its safety pin off was found in front of the Quezon City home of a retired judge on Tuesday morning. The police said the MK2 fragmentation grenade was “frozen’’—half of it was covered in ice—and was kept in a black bag together with three plastic bottles containing diesel and TNT. It was found around 7 a.m. in front of the house of retired judge Vivencio Baclig at Bloomfield Subdivision, Barangay Pasong Putik. The grenade would have exploded “once the ice fully melted,” according to Insp. Noel Sublay of the Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit of the Quezon City Police District. Sublay said it was the first time for him to see ice being used to “time” an explosion and that whoever planted the grenade had apparently monitored the movement of Baclig, who usually leaves the house in the morning. A neighbor told investigators that two white vans were seen stopping in front of the house around 4 a.m. The former judge, who is now into private law practice, maintained that he didn’t know of anyone who would do him harm. Jaymee T. Gamil

LTFRB tapping GPS to check speeding buses

The Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) will soon be monitoring the speed of public utility buses through the use of global positioning system (GPS) technology. In a statement on Wednesday, the LTFRB said it would start testing the use of GPS on selected buses. Under the system, a GPS device and communication system installed in the bus will continuously send speed and location data to a control center monitored by the LTFRB. The passengers themselves can also monitor the speed of the bus through an on-screen real-time display in the vehicle. The speed limit on expressways is 80 kilometers per hour; within urban areas, the limit is 60 kph. The plan was in response to the recent spate of road accidents involving speeding buses and reckless drivers, said LTFRB Chair Winston Ginez. Jaymee T. Gamil