Metro Briefs: Bomb scare causes heavy traffic on Edsa

A BOMB scare on a bus shut down a portion of the northbound lane of Edsa in Cubao, Quezon City, on Sunday evening, choking traffic for several hours in the area.

The scare began at Shaw Boulevard in Mandaluyong City, when at 7:45 p.m., passengers of a Magic Line Express bus (TXT 498) informed conductor Eduardo de Leon Jr. of a “suspicious black bag” left behind on a seat near the back of the vehicle, a report from the Quezon City Police District’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit (CIDU) showed.

The bag, according to De Leon’s account to the police, was brought on board by three men who got on the vehicle in Baclaran, Parañaque City.

They got off at Guadalupe in Makati City.

What made the bag “suspicious” was that it was unzipped and passengers could see what looked like canisters with packaging tape and wires protruding from it.

When De Leon alerted driver Efren Roldan of the find, he stopped the bus in front of a gasoline station at the corner of Edsa and Main Avenue in Cubao, to ask help from policemen in the area.

The bus was evacuated and cordoned off, as the Explosives and Ordnance Disposal unit, led by Senior Insp. Noel Sublay, was called in. In a phone interview on Monday, Sublay confirmed that the bag contained something that “only looked like a bomb.”

“It was just steel canisters, batteries and wires but had no explosive content,” Sublay said.

“It seemed someone just wanted to scare people,” he added.

Over the past week, text messages warning of bombs supposedly to be planted by terrorist groups had been circulating in Metro Manila. Jaymee T. Gamil

Family of 3 killed in Pasig fire

A fire that killed a family of three in Pasig City on Monday was blamed on electrical overload. The blaze that hit the the two-story house of the Chan family on  Sikap Compound in Barangay Kalawaan occurred just three days after a fire in nearby Barangay Palatiw left four people dead.

According to arson investigator SFO1 Robert Maravilla, the blaze started at the ground floor of the victims’ house around 2:30 a.m. Monday.

It killed Constancia Chan, 50; her mother Rosario, 72; and grandson Benedict, 21.

Their burned bodies were found at the ground floor of the house after the flooring at the second floor where they were staying collapsed due to the fire.

Maravilla said that the blaze may have been caused by electrical overloading and poor electrical wiring installation.

According to him, the circuit breakers installed in the house were not inside the fuse box. He also noted that the family owned a number of appliances, such as an air-conditioning unit, two refrigerators and several electric fans.

He surmised that the frequent use of the fans and air conditioner over the last few days may have contributed to electrical overloading.

Maravilla said that when the fire broke out, the victims’ neighbors saw Constancia and Benedict waving for help but failed to get to them because the house was securely locked from the inside.

He added that the family kept the house locked because the convenience store they owned on the ground floor had been robbed several times.

An estimated P300,000 worth of property was lost in the fire which reached the first alarm.  Jovic Yee