ILOILO City – A bomb threat spread through text messages to two professors led to the temporary suspension of classes at the University of the Philippines Visayas (UPV) Iloilo City campus on Saturday.
Officers from the Explosives and Ordnance Division of the Iloilo City Police Office who inspected the campus upon learning about the threat did not find any explosive. It was a hoax, they said.
Superintendent Jonathan Pablito, Police Station 1 chief, said they were tracing the person who used the mobile phone number where the text message on the bomb threat came.
Two graduate school professors received a text message at around 6:50 a.m. stating, “May bombang sasabog sa UPV city campus ngayon (A bomb will explode now at the UPV city campus).”
The message came from the same unidentified mobile number.
Pablito said they tried calling that number but it can no longer be reached. Now they were zeroing in on people who had access to the two professors’ mobile numbers, said the officer.
A security guard of the university informed Police Station 1 about the threat at 8:15 a.m.
Graduate school classes were temporarily cancelled as EOD officers inspected the campus. The officers did not find any bomb and stopped the inspection at 11 a.m.
Pablito advised the immediate resumption of classes in a bid to dampen any impact the hoax had on the campus.
“These people spreading hoaxes were like playing games, feeling some sense of control over the situation. If they lose that sense of control, they will stop,” he said in Filipino.
At the same time the police were still trying to determine the motive in spreading the hoax. From what they have gathered, Dec. 1 was a regular class day for the UPV graduate school.
“There were no scheduled exams and there were only three days left before the graduate school goes on holiday break,” said Pablito. “It was not clear where the culprit was going with this.”
The UPV Iloilo City campus was the fourth school to have been disrupted by a bomb hoax in the latter half of the year.
A bomb hoax disrupted classes and examinations at the University of San Agustin’s extension campus in Barangay Sambag, Jaro district on Aug. 9. A male phone caller claimed a bomb was planted in the school. Police did not find anything.
The following month San Agustin’s main campus on General Luna Street received a bomb threat twice – on Oct. 3 and Oct. 4, less than 24 hours apart.
A day before the first bomb hoax at San Agustin’s main campus, on Oct. 2, a bomb threat cancelled classes at the Ateneo de Iloilo – Santa Maria Catholic School.
A security guard found an abandoned green bag at the school’s Gate 2 that contained a cellular phone wrapped in electrical tape and two red and white leg wires connected to a plastic bottle.
Police said the contraption was assembled to look like an improvised explosive device but without a main charge that, in real bombs, could trigger an explosion.
In case of another bomb threat at the UPV Iloilo City campus or any school, the security guards should check the perimeters and the hallways, and ask teachers and students if they have found any suspicious-looking package or object, said Pablito.
Call the police only if there is any such package, he said.
“Make a calibrated response – ensure everyone is safe without disrupting the day-to-day activities at the school,” said Pablito./PN
