ZAMBOANGA CITY (Mindanao Examiner / Feb. 6, 2014) – Police arrested two young men who allegedly threatened to bomb a bus company if its owner fails to pay protection money in the southern Philippine port city of Zamboanga, officials said.
The duo – Gerwin Luania and Jomar Pillay – have been nabbed in a police entrapment operation with the help of the bus firm, Biel Transit, in Ayala village.
Police said the two men – who demanded P300,000 – are natives of Zamboanga del Norte’s Sibuco town, a known rebel stronghold in the region.
Both Luania and Pilay denied the allegations and said an unidentified man had told them to go to the village to pick up a package from another individual.
Last September, a powerful bomb exploded at the main depot of Biel Transit in Labuan and killing two teenage bus washers, Hudson Guinilac and Allison Saavedra; and the bus conductor Meliton Orquijo.
The bomb was left under a passenger of a parked bus and exploded. The blast was powerful that it totally destroyed the roof of the bus and damaged several others parked nearby. (Mindanao Examiner)
20