NAIA, ports on heightened alert

The Bureau of Customs (BOC) said yesterday security has been heightened at the Ninoy Aquino Airport (NAIA) and other entry points after Japanese intelligence reports showed militants were sending letter bombs to Myanmar’s embassies in the region.

Myanmar authorities have blamed dissident groups of exiles living outside the military-ruled state for a series of parcel bombs sent to its missions in Japan, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines.

The BOC said all officers had been told "to be on the lookout for any suspicious parcels."

At the NAIA, all personnel were subject to a strict "no identification, no entry" policy in Customs areas and private security guards had been vetted, the statement quoted Esmeralda Saplala, NAIA complex security chief, as saying.

The Philippine National Police (PNP) is already on high alert against attacks by local Communist and Muslim militant groups, as well as after the bomb blasts that killed at least 185 people on the Indonesian island of Bali in October.

Last Oct. 24 Japanese police uncovered a plot to blow up the Myanmar Embassy in Tokyo using a letter bomb addressed to Ambassador to Japan Nang Aung. Investigators of the Shingawa District Police Station have since warned that similar attacks may be carried out in neigboring countries.

In mid-November, the PNP defused a letter bomb made of a button-sized battery, electrical wiring and a blasting cap at the Myanmar Embassy in Makati.

No one was injured and the embassy was not evacuated. Radio reports said there was a card inside the envelope that read "Saving all my love for you, Happy Birthday." The return address was a street in the Thai capital, Bangkok. – Jose Aravilla