A police K-9 searches the surroundings of the Department of Education Cebu City in Barangay Apas after a bomb threat message was sent to an official of the agency this morning. | Contributed photo
CEBU CITY, Philippines — Cebu City police have warned the public not to make any bomb hoaxes because they may end up in jail for it.
This after the policemen from the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO) are tracking down the person responsible for sending a bomb threat message early this morning, June 28, to the Department of Education in Cebu City (DepEd Cebu City) .
Police Lieutenant Colonel Wilbert Parilla, CCPO deputy director for operations, said that whoever was responsible for this bomb threat would be slapped with appropriate charges for his or her malicious dissemination of false information.
P.D. 1727
Parilla was referring to Presidential Decree 1727, which makes unlawful malicious dissemination of false information of the willful making of any threat concerning bombs, explosives.
This measure carries a penalty of imprisonment of not more than 5 years and a fine of not more than P40,000 or both at the discretion of the court.
Parilla, however, said that there would possibly be other charges to be filed against the person responsible for the bomb hoax, depending on the outcome of the investigation.
He said that the City Intelligence Unit was also trying to find a link of the previous bomb hoaxes that the DepEd Cebu City received since 2020.
Today’s bomb hoax was the third one since 2020 for DepEd Cebu City — the first one in February 2020 while the second one in March that year.
“In the previous incident, duna silay misunderstanding within divisions or sa mga empleyado with regards sa mga personnel sa DepEd. Atong gicheck og the same ba gihapon,” Parilla said.
(In the previous incident, they had a misunderstanding within the division or with the employees with regard to the DepEd personnel. So we are checking if this was the same as the previous incidents.)
He said that there would be a joint effort not only among intelligence and operating units in Cebu City but also in the region to find the person behind this bomb hoax.
Parilla admitted that this kind of incident was alarming especially with the security and safety of the public.
He said that they would not disregard any reports concerning bomb threats regardless of how often these would be reported to them.
In this case, he said, this involved a big agency, the Department of Education.
“It is alarming because dili mana gud normal, tanang reported nga bomb threat, mu act gyud ta ana immediately kay basin unya og tinuod. Dili nato na i disregard nga report even though second or third alarm especially that this is a big agency,” he said.
(It is alarming because that is normal. So in all reported bomb threat, we will act on that immediately because who knows it might be really a real one. We cannot disregard the report even though this is the second or third alarm for this big agency.)
Bomb threat reported
In today’s bomb hoax, at past 7 a.m. the Parian Police Station received a call from an employee of DepEd Cebu City, who informed them about a text message of a bomb threat received by Rhea Mar Angtud, division superintendent of DepEd-Cebu City who is on leave.
The message from an unknown contact complained about the delays of release of allowance of DepEd Cebu City personnel and mentioned a threat of the presence of a bomb in the area.
Police then forwarded the report to the City Tactical Operation Center (CTOC) of CCPO and the latter reported it to the Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) unit.
EOD personnel arrived in the area shortly before 8 a.m. They took almost two hours checking the area.
Police Lieutenant Franklin Rosario, team leader of responding EOD, declared the area as “cleared” around 11:03 a.m.
Rosario then allowed DepEd personnel to enter the building to check on their personal belongings and to report any suspicious items they would find.
“Ang finalization sa maong operation is ang tanang personnel per division, per section amoa silang gipasulod. Halimbawa, ang finance section, amoa sila gipasulod para muidentify sa ilang personal items para kung mayroon silang things na hindi sa kanila or bag-o sa ilang mata so dili sa kanila iyon, yon yung subject for suspicious items,” Rosario said.
(The final part of our operation is where personnel per division, per section we let enter. For example, the finance section, we let them enter and identify their personal items so that if there are things that they see as new or not from them then the would be a subject for suspicious items.)
Delay of allowance belied
Bernadette Susvilla, division’s officer-in-charge, for her part, belied the claim of the sender about delayed allowances of their personnel.
“On the claim on financial allowance, I can assure that there is no delay in processing. But we still have to ensure that the usual processing, speeding up, processing of the claims should be done,” Susvilla said.
“Wala man gyud tay kalapasan nga nahimo, processing of claims has been done accordingly, walay delay,” she added.
(We have not done any wrong. Processing of claims has been done accordingly.)
She further said that allowances for May were already given while those allotted for June were still being processed.
Susvilla said that following the bomb scare on Monday she would also order a review of their health and safety protocols.
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