MANILA, Philippines — Despite Improvised Explosive Device (IED) bombings near the Senate and Department of Justice (DOJ), the Philippine National Police (PNP) maintains there is “no further threat” seen.
“It’s still under investigation, the IEDs we saw,” PNP public information chief Col. Allen Rae Co said in a press briefing in Camp Crame on Tuesday.
“The area’s been secured. There is no further threat, especially to the area concerned,” he noted.
The suspected IED outside the DOJ exploded past midnight on Monday, while the one outside the Senate was discovered during a routine security inspection along the center island of Diokno Boulevard later on Monday morning.
This came hours before President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s fifth State of the Nation Address (Sona) and the opening of the second regular session of the 20th Congress.
PNP chief Gen. Jose Melencio Nartatez Jr. earlier said the IEDs found near the DOJ and the Senate had a “big possibility” of being connected.
As to why there has not been anyone arrested yet, Co said the “timing, the placing, they were both somewhat placed at the same time.”
“Perhaps, there is no other reason but to create fear during the day itself, before the president’s Sona,” he added. “That’s the most logical we can think of.”
As for the Senate, which has its own sergeant-at-arms, Co said the PNP continues to monitor security outside the chamber’s perimeter since tensions began last May over leadership dispute.
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