PAGADIAN CITY (Mindanao Examiner / Feb. 4, 2013) – A motorcycle packed with explosives went off Monday outside a restaurant in the southern Philippines and wounding at least 5 people, army officials said.
Officials said the explosion occurred in the town of Tubod shortly before noontime. No individual of group claimed responsibility for the attack that took place outside Ysmael Restaurant.
“The motorcycle was parked outside the restaurant when it went off. Five people were reported wounded,” Major Edgardo Amore, a spokesman for the 1st Infantry Division, told the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
The identities of those wounded in the blast were not immediately known, but the army spokesman said among those in the restaurant was former Salvador mayor Sultan Jhony Tawantawan and his lawyer Yusop Omar.
Amores did not say whether the restaurant or the former politician was the target of the bombing or if the attack was related to terrorism.
He said authorities were investigating the blast, which occurred ahead of the political campaign period for the May local and national elections.
Elections in the southern Philippines are traditionally violent because of warring political clans and the presence of different rebel groups. (Mindanao Examiner. E. Dumaboc)
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