Cybercrime: Hoax bomb threats were sent through emails. (INQUIRER FILE PHOTO)
MANILA — Office work in at least four government agencies in Quezon City was disrupted following bomb threats on Tuesday afternoon that turned out to be merely scares.
Employees of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Department of Agrarian Reform, and Department of Education were evacuated and sent home early due to the threats. The Department of the Interior and Local Government also reportedly received a similar scare.
Senior Insp. Noel Sublay, chief of the Explosive and Ordnance Division (EOD) of the Quezon City Police District, said the threat was sent through e-mail and was received in different office, corporate and individual e-mail addresses.
The message, as read by Sublay to the Philippine Daily Inquirer, read: “Sa second floor ng office niyo, sa may steel cabinet, may apat na envelope-sized bombs na nakatago. Kahapon namin nilagay at sasabog ‘yan ngayon.” (On the second floor of your office, in the steel cabinet are four envelope-sized bombs. We placed them there yesterday and they are set to explode today.)
Sublay said the sender’s e-mail address was alexaderunder@gmail.com, and the message was sent to the offices around 12:27 p.m.
The EOD received its first call from the DENR at 1:10 pm, before consecutive calls from the other agencies came in.
Bomb disposal teams were immediately sent to the different agencies. The threats, however, were all declared false as of 4:30 p.m.
Sublay said they would work with the cybercrime division to trace the origin of the e-mails. SFM/rga