One killed, five hurt in blast at General Santos City

By Ronron
February 28, 2008

A man died after an explosive of unknown type that he was allegedly holding blew off late Wednesday night in General Santos City, the city police chief said Thursday.

Sr. Supt. Robert Po told Manila Shimbun in a phone interview that the incident happened at around 10:45 pm at the vicinity of the Old City Hall building in the center of the city.

The Old City Hall is just located at the back of the new city hall building where several people converged for the culmination of the 11-day Kalilangan Festival of the city.

Po said five passersby were also hurt slightly by the blast, which they are considering as “either a case of accidental explosion or pre-mature explosion.”

“The carrier himself was the casualty… His name is Gleen Octaviano, 26 years old, an ambulant vendor,” Po said.

He said they identified Octaviano through the pieces of document recovered from his cart and his co-ambulant vendors in the park.

The five wounded persons, Po said, include a 16-year-old, while the rest are already of legal age.

Po said the crime laboratory office of the Region 12 Police is still ascertaining if the blast was caused by a grenade, pillbox or an improvised explosive device (IED).

“We have not recovered IED parts. But we will still await for the scientific findings,” he said.

Based on that, they will then draw the possible motive behind the blast, Po said. “We don’t have specific motive yet now unless we are able to establish the source or the cause of the explosion – if it was a pillbox, a grenade or an IED.”

At the same time, they will check on the contents of the cellular phone of Octaviano, which police recovered intact.

The last time a bombing rocked the city was on January 30, which happened outside a tuna canning firm located some eight kilometers away from the center of the city.

The incident, which police say was motivated by an extortion attempt allegedly of the Al-Khobar Group, left five people killed./DMS