Trauma grips school after bombing

STUDENTS, teachers and employees of Central Mindanao University in Barangay Dologon, Maramag town, Bukidnon province, light candles and pray for the victims of the Dec. 9 bus bombing near the university. Five of the 11 fatalities and 11 of the more than 40 wounded were students of the university. JB R. DEVEZA/INQUIRER MINDANAO

MARAMAG, Bukidnon—Grief and trauma are gripping students of a university here following a terror attack on a bus that killed 11 people and wounded at least 41 others.

Students of Central Mindanao University (CMU) said they now feared riding buses as a result of the attack.

Some expressed fears that the next target of those behind the bombing of the Rural Transit bus would be the university itself in the village of Dologon.

Joseph Cris Tadeo, a freshman at CMU, said he goes home only once a week and is now considering taking a mode of transportation other than the bus.

“I am now afraid to get on a bus,” Tadeo said during a prayer rally and candle-lighting ceremony for the victims of the terror attack on the CMU campus late Wednesday.

Clyde Deocampo, another CMU freshman, said what worsened the students’ fear was the spread of text messages claiming that another attack would be staged by those who bombed the Rural Transit bus.

“We are afraid now,” said Ross Diana, another CMU student, who lost a friend, Mariel Achacoso, in the terror attack.

Diana recalled she and her sister sending off Achacoso, who was bound for home in Malaybalay City, at least 50 kilometers from this town.

Moments after Achacoso boarded the bus and as the bus started moving, the explosion from an improvised explosive device took place, Diana recalled.

“We thought it was just a fireworks explosion,” Diana said. “We realized that something was wrong when we heard people screaming, some of them coming off the bus bloodied,” she said.

Many students recalled how their dead friends and classmates had been when they were still alive.

Of Achacoso, Diana said: “She was of strong faith, bubbly and smart. A very bright future could have been waiting for her.”

Gov. Jose Maria Zubiri said security had been tightened all over the province and checkpoints had been put up to screen buses passing by to their final destinations.

Aside from bus inspections, authorities would use K-9 units and frisk bus passengers, Zubiri said.

He said the provincial government would do “anything that is within the law” to secure the people.

But he said the attack was aimed at Rural Transit, saying that the province, or its people, could not have been the target of the terror attack because of its timing.

He said that if the province was the target, the terrorists could have timed their attack when the province celebrated its 100th year during which “thousands of visitors came.”

The terrorists, he said, “could have done that [attack] at that time.”

Emerging from a closed-door meeting with police and military officials in Malaybalay City on Wednesday, Zubiri said the conclusion at the meeting was that the terror attack was extortion-related.

He said that while the Rural Transit management had denied receiving extortion demands in recent months, intelligence reports pointed to the bus firm giving protection money to a group that operates in nearby North Cotabato province. He did not identify what group authorities were referring to.

“[Rural Transit] denied there was an extortion attempt, but police records showed that there were instances that it had paid money to extortionists,” the governor said.

He said he believed that the terror attack could be the work of individuals who are members of Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), but not BIFF itself.

“Maybe extortionists, who are members of BIFF, could be behind the attack but not BIFF itself,” he said.

Zubiri said he had asked Rural Transit to give at least P50,000 each to the families of those who died and to help finance the medical expenses of the injured victims.

He said the provincial government would also give financial assistance. Reports from Bobby Lagsa and JB Deveza, Inquirer Mindanao