ISULAN, Sultan Kudarat—Civilians and police authorities prevented Wednesday night a bombing attempt, in what could have been a bloody culmination program of a local festival here.
Police Senior Supt. Raul Supiter, Sultan Kudarat police provincial director, said combined police and force multipliers consisting of civilian volunteers discovered the homemade bomb left on a roadside in Barangay Kalawag here, where people had been gathering for the week-long Kalimudan (Thanksgiving) Festival.
Supt. Supiter said police bomb experts were quickly deployed and disarmed the powerful improvised explosive device (IED) made of black powder, cut nails and metal sheets with torch as triggering device around 9:30 p.m.
He said it was placed by still unidentified men in the middle of parked vehicles near the main entrance of the provincial capitol grounds, the venue of culminating program.
Supiter said the IED could blow up a car and could send its metal shrapnel to as far as 500 meters away had it exploded. He lauded the alert civilians tasked by police to serve as eyes and ears against lawless elements out to disrupt the festival.
Following the attempt, more soldiers from the Army’s 33rd Infantry Battalion had been deployed as the celebration lasts until December. (PNA/Edwin Fernandez)
