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GENERAL SANTOS CITY: Three people were wounded Monday night when
another Weena bus was bombed inside a public terminal in Cotabato
City.
Chief Supt. Felizardo Serapio, Central Mindanao
police director, identified the wounded as Joseph Ere, the Weena bus
driver, and Leopoldo Cabañog, security guard of the city public
terminal and a retired Army sergeant.
Reports said the air-conditioned bus bearing
plate number MVK 484 had just arrived in Cotabato from Davao City
when the improvised explosive device went off at 7:15 pm.
“Although no group claimed the bombing, we are
looking into the possibilities of extortion as the key motive in the
assault,” Serapio said.
The Weena bus line has been the object of a
series of bombings since 2007, and while it temporarily ceased
operation of its Davao-Cotabato route after three of its buses were
bombed right inside the company’s compound in Midsayap, North
Cotabato, it appears that owner Barnardino Baldevoso is unlikely to
give up on the transportation business. Baldevoso, who started his
bus operation in the early 1970s, said the bombing and bus-burning
assaults were no longer new to him.
“I don’t know how many buses I have lost
just because I didn’t want to give in to these extortion
activities,” Baldevoso said in a press statement.
While security officials tagged the Al-Khobar
gang, an affiliate of the notorious Abu Sayyaf, the possibility of
rivalry in the business has not been discounted.
“Initial reports suggested the bombing was
perpetrated by the Al-Khobar which has been linked to previous
attacks on commuter buses in Mindanao,” Maj. Julieto Ando,
spokesman for the Army’s 6th Infantry Division in Mindanao, told
The Manila Times.
-- Isagani P. Palma and Al Jacinto
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