Bomb angle dims in blast; condo tenant ‘also a victim’
The bomb angle in the deadly blast at the Two Serendra condominium complex in Taguig City last Friday grew dimmer as investigators found no explosive residue or triggering devices at the site.
Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Secretary Manuel Roxas II made the observation as he reiterated authorities’ commitment to a scientific approach to investigating the blast, which killed three people and injured four.
This developed as the DILG chief drew flak from the owner of the unit destroyed in the blast for declaring a tenant injured in the incident as a “person of interest.”
The US-based owner of unit 501- B of Two Serendra said tenant Angelito San Juan was himself a victim.
“Our investigators are carefully gathering evidence and they have yet to locate triggering device or electronic device commonly used in making bombs. So the probability that the blast was due to a bomb explosion decreases,” said Roxas.
He said even K-9 units detected no explosive devices or residue at the site of the blast.
He said the explosion could have been caused by chemicals but clarified that his observation is not conclusive as the investigation is ongoing.
“We really don’t know what the people inside the apartment were doing prior to the explosion,” Roxas said.
He said investigators were still trying to determine how the explosion could have thrown a huge concrete slab 50 to 70 meters away.
The Philippine National Police (PNP), through spokesman Chief Superintendent Generoso Cerbo Jr., called on the public to wait for the results of the investigation and not speculate.
No rush to conclusion
At Malacañang, President Aquino said there would be no rush to conclusion in the investigation and that the result of the probe would be “definitive.”
“If we have come out with results by now they will say it was fully rushed and the investigation is not thorough and scientific. So we accept that we have critics who consider that everything that we do is wrong. But what we are after is the right thing,” Aquino told reporters in an ambush interview at the Palace.
The President said his instructions to authorities from the time he arrived at the scene a few hours after the explosion “is to come out with definitive findings that will withstand anybody’s scrutiny.”
He said he had personally asked the Department of Public Works and Highways, the National Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Science and Technology and “so many other agencies apart from the law enforcement entities” to join the investigation and make sure the results would be indisputable.
On Friday evening, an explosion rocked unit 501-B of Two Serendra, killing three people and wounding four others.
The three fatalities – employees of appliances store Abenson – were crushed to death when a large slab of concrete torn from unit 501-B landed on their van as it was passing near the building.