P50K reward offered for arrest of bus bomber
Mindanao Armed Conflict • 14:00 PM Tue Apr 26, 2022
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By:
John M. Unson
PARANG, Maguindanao --- The municipal government here on Tuesday offered P50,000 for any information leading to the arrest of the suspect in Sunday’s bombing of a bus here that hurt six passengers.
Parang Mayor Cahar Ibay, chairperson of the municipal peace and order council, told reporters Tuesday he will release the amount without question once the culprit is identified and arrested.
The Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region released Monday a cartographic image and photos of the suspect obtained from recordings of the security camera of the bombed out unit of the Rural Tours Bus Company.
The suspect was said to have boarded the bus somewhere, planted two improvised explosive devices in its rearmost portion and alighted in the town proper here before one of the two IEDs went off.
The bus was bound for Pagadian City in Zamboanga del Sur, en route to Dipolog City in Zamboanga del Norte.
Brig. Gen. Arthur Cabalona, director of PRO-BAR, said their intelligence agents are now trying to locate the suspect with the help of military counterparts.
He said there are indications that a group against the operation of the Rural Tours Bus Company on the Dipolog-Pagadian-Cotabato-GenSan route could be responsible for the bombing of its unit while in Barangay Makir here.
Operators and drivers of air-conditioned passenger vans plying the Cotabato-Pagadian route had been affected by its operation owing to its lower fare rates.
Six bus passengers, Feysel Culag, 40, Expedito Ocay, 45, Benjamin Wahab, 32, Pastod Bularon, 53, Elgene Palma, 30 and the 17-year-old John Paul Capio, were injured in the explosion. (John Unson)