Senior Supt. Ronald dela Rosa, city police chief, said
the bombs exploded at 7:03 pm inside the SM Cinema 1 in Ecoland Subdivsion and
at 7:25 pm inside Cinema 5 of Gaisano Mall in Bajada, both outside downtown
Davao.
While both explosions damaged chairs and caused blast
marks at the ceiling, no one was injured or killed. Five moviegoers at Cinema 5 of Gaisano Mall sought
treatment at nearby San Pedro Hospital for temporary deafness but were
discharged immediately.
A traffic aide outside the SM City in Ecoland told a
television interview that the explosion was heard from his position in the
highway, and rushed to the mall to check. Moments later, bomb ordnance units
from the police, the Army and the anti-terror unit, Task Force Davao, arrived and
cordoned the scene.
Dela Rosa said that the explosives were improvised but disclosed
that investigators could not immediately ascertain from which type of weapon
they were crafted from. He said that the explosives were not rigged with
shrapnels and were placed at unoccupied portion of the theaters. The Gaisano Mall
blast may have been triggered by a mobile phone, after probers found a phone
keypad.
“They were intended to cause disturbance and not to harm
people,” he said.
Despite the known strict security blanket in the city
that shielded the city from the series of bombings in central and northern Mindanao
two months, he admitted that bombers were able to slip through. “I believe they assembled the explosive
inside the theater,” he said.
In a news briefing early Tuesday, Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, warned
bombers not to repeat their acts and start creating trouble in the city. He
said the bombers could not be immediately identified as police continued to
sift through the bomb scene.
He said that the explosions “are meant to make a
statement only”, and ruled out the motive of killing people.
He warned owners of shopping malls and other business
establishments that he would close their businesses “if they can not provide
adequate security” to their establishments. He had been appealing in the past to
business owners to help secure themselves and their clients by putting up security
cameras or additional security personnel.
But ruled out the explosions as a ploy to divert military
pressure on the Moro National Liberation Front guerrillas in Zambonga City, nor
were they intended to divert people’s indignation away from the pork barrel issue.
“They are a poor man’s appreciation,” he said. But he said
police could not also forward any theory on the motive.
Rolando Olamit, chairman of the MNLF Davao State
Revolutionary Committee, also arrived at the
Gaisano Mall after the explosion and told reporters that the MNLF was
not behind it. “Our expressed marching
order from the Chairman [Nur Misuari] was to assist the city in the peace and
order,” he said.
Misuari, a friend of Duterte, earlier assured the mayor that
the city was not a staging area of any MNLF action. Duterte contacted Misuari on
his mobile phone at the height of the MNLF siege of Zamboanga City.
The last time this country's premier southern seaport of 1.5 million residents was bombed was in 2003, when scores were killed and more than 100 were injured in a bomb explosion at the waiting shed outside the terminal building of the DAvao airport on March, and a month later at the highway entrance to the Sasa wharf.
Since then, the city government installed the country's elaborate security blanket patterned after that of Israel's security, involving the local population.
