Hoax via text message stalls City Hall works
Several employees and clients transacting at the Cebu City Hall had to leave the building yesterday morning after a bomb threat circulated through text messages.
Acting Vice Mayor Dave Tumulak said the bomb threat was a hoax and was sent intentionally to scare the people inside City Hall.
“At 10:18 in the morning, I received a text message, it was a bomb threat. Aside from me, other officials like Acting Mayor Edgardo Labella, the police and some employees, among others, got the same text message,” he told reporters.
The same sender sent the same text message to the officials and employees.
The sender said that at exactly 11:30 a.m., a bomb will explode in City Hall, the nearby Basilica del Sto. Niño and a supermarket across City Hall.
When they received the message, Tumulak said they immediately activated their code white protocol, which requires all employees to check their respective surroundings for suspicious items.
During the search, an employee from the mayor’s office turned over to authorities a mobile phone that was reportedly left in their office last Wednesday afternoon.
The phone was forwarded to the police.
A team from the Special Weapons and Tactics (Swat) of the Cebu City Police Office also arrived and checked the City Hall premises.
Chief Insp. Sandley Sabang of the Swat team said their search turned out negative.
“The threat was just really a joke,” he said.
Sabang warned the sender of the text message that once he or she is identified, they will file complaint against the culprit. They tried to call the mobile number used to send the bomb threat, but was already unreachable.
Sabang said they will coordinate with the service provider of the sender to try to trace the owner of the mobile number.
The incident, Tumulak said, caused only a minor disruption of the services inside City Hall since they did not advise all employees to leave their respective posts.
“A bomb threat is not a joke. Whoever was responsible, we request him or her not to do it again because people here in City Hall are working,” Tumulak said./