2 Rizal Day bombing suspects roaming Metro

Two suspects in last year’s Rizal Day bombings are still roaming Metro Manila.

Reliable sources said Hadji Onos, alias Maklis, and Sammy Arinday were seen by a prosecution witness, who reported the matter to authorities.

Onos and Arinday are said to have recruited the six other suspects in the series of bombings on Dec. 30 last year that rocked Plaza Ferguson in front of the US Embassy in Manila, a cargo terminal at Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Pasay City, an abandoned gas station on Ayala Avenue in Makati City, a bus traveling along EDSA in Cubao, Quezon City, and a coach of the Light Rail Transit Authority (LRTA) at the Blumentritt, Manila station.

Last Dec. 21, police found a powerful explosive near the pedestrian underpass between the Allied Banking Corp. and Ramon Cojuangco buildings on Ayala Avenue in Makati.

Hundreds of employees, including diplomats from nearby embassies, were forced to evacuate their offices and spill out into the streets while the Makati police bomb squad detonated the bomb.

The criminal case against Onos, Arinday and the six others is now undergoing preliminary investigation at the Department of Justice based on a complaint filed by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI).

The NBI said the Rizal Day bombings were meant to destabilize the Estrada administration.

Onos and his seven co-accused are the second batch of suspects after the government dropped the charges against Moro Islamic Liberation Front chairman Hashim Salamat and six others.

Onos was identified by three witnesses as the man carrying a "dark sports bag" inside an LRT coach, who later hurriedly got off at the Tayuman station, minutes before the exploding bomb ripped through the coach.

The next LRT station after Tayuman is Blumentritt, where most of the victims died as people were rushing home from shopping to get ready for New Year’s eve.

"Let me pass, I’m getting off the train," Onos was quoted by a witness as saying in Filipino. "You (passengers) should also get off."

Investigations showed Onos recruited Arinday and the six in Lanao del Sur and that they later met in Antipolo City where they planned the bombings.

The six other suspects are: Col. Efren Torres, Amir Dimaampo, Salvin Camana, Ibrahim Guindolongan, Roberto Onyot, and Rogelio Cagadas.

All eight are facing murder charges.