Malabon junkshop yields 20 vintage bombs

Police recovered at least 20 World War II bombs inside two sacks at a junk shop in Malabon City Friday after a group of boys tried to sell the explosives as scrap metal.

“Several young boys hauled two sacks of salvaged metals to a junkshop here Friday but the shop owner, seeing that the sacks contain WWII bombs, shooed away the kids,” Abet Aquino, a staff of Barangay Longos chairman Melchor “Choy” Pablo, said. 

Aquino said that at around noon, young scavengers arrived at the Silver Junkshop on Lapu-Lapu Avenue in Barangay Longos with two sacks of salvaged metals in tow.

Junkshop owner Adrian Dizon told probers he told the children that the bombs were dangerous and that it was illegal to sell them. The boys fled in different directions.

Dizon then reported the incident to the Malabon Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) unit, which picked up the bombs. He said he did not know where the explosives were found and failed to ask the children.

According to Aquino, the vintage bombs were salvaged by the boys from a canal in Navotas that was being cleared of garbage and other debris.

Aquino advised scavengers not to tinker with vintage bombs because they could still explode. He also urged junkshop workers to immediately report to the police any vintage bombs sold to them.

Senior Inspector Monchito Lusterio, Explosives and Ordnance Division chief of the Malabon SWAT unit, encouraged the public to call the SWAT EOD’s telephone number 447-0753 in such cases.

Lusterio said the bombs will be kept in their custody for safekeeping until they receive a memo from the Logistics Support Service in Camp Crame for the appropriate turnover.  – Pete Laude, Jerry Botial