COTABATO
Nine people were killed on Thursday when a bomb exploded aboard a packed passenger bus in the troubled southern Philippines, authorities said.
The military and police said Muslim militants or bandits who are known to operate on the southern island of Mindanao could have been behind the attack, with extortion the likely motive.
“The bus company has long been receiving extortion letters from armed groups operating in the region,” regional military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Randolph Cabangbang said. Philippine President Benigno Aquino told reporters in Manila he had ordered police to study how to boost security against likely and vulnerable targets of such attacks.
He also said extortion appeared to be the likely motive but stressed that the police would follow all angles. “I will not direct them to focus on one particular angle. The only direction is to solve and arrest and put behind bars all of the perpetrators,” Aquino said.
The bomb was apparently hidden inside a bag placed in a luggage compartment at the back of the bus, and exploded just after a group of men who were suspected to have planted it got off the vehicle, Cabangbang said. Bus driver Arlan Tadeo, 38, who was unharmed in the incident, said there were 60 passengers on board when the explosion occurred.
Tadeo said he parked the bus at the roadside and looked in the mirror again to see headless bodies and passengers raising their bloody arms as they screamed for help. Tadeo said police and military forces arrived in about 10 minutes and organised local residents to help take the victims to hospitals.
The bomb went off on a highway just outside Matalam town in a lightly populated farming area, largely planted with sugar cane. “Eight people died on the spot,” said Matalam police chief Inspector Donald Cabigas, adding another person succumbed to their injuries in hospital.
