Prank text messages keeping Pangasinan cops on their toes

LINGAYEN, Pangasinan — The bomb scare goes high-tech in this town as phone calls and text messages about supposed explosions in major installations circulate around the province, hounding local police units and creating undue panic among residents.

Superintendent Noli Taliño, Dagupan City police chief, told The STAR that the latest victim was the Luzon Medical Center in the city, whose staff received a telephone call at about 7:30 p.m. Tuesday warning that a bomb would explode in the hospital anytime.

"We immediately responded and searched the area, but it (turned out to be a hoax). But we advised them to treat these kinds of calls seriously as if these were real threats," he said.

Early yesterday morning, text messages circulated in the province that bombs were set to explode at the coal-fired power plant in Sual town and at the National Power Corp.’s sub-station in Labrador town.

One of the text messages even claimed that a policeman guarding the Sual plant was shot by unidentified men.

But Chief Inspector Noli Sison, Sual police chief, clarified that the shooting of PO1 Jojo Hermono, a member of the Regional Mobile Group deployed at the Sual plant, was not in any way related to an earlier intelligence report that terrorists were targeting the facility, among other vital installations in the province.

Hermono was reportedly sleeping inside a patrol car parked in front of a police outpost in Barangay Pangascasan, several meters away from the power plant, when he was shot last Monday morning.

"This should serve as a warning to our policemen that they should always be on alert," said Senior Superintendent Arturo Cacdac Jr., provincial police director.