Cotabato hotel men foil arson attempt

COTABATO CITY — Vigilant employees of the Hotel Filipino here foiled an attempt by a suspected Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) member, who had disguised himself as a backpacker, to burn the hotel building using an incendiary bomb Wednesday night.

The suspect, who introduced himself to the hotel’s front desk as one Elizalde Montes, checked in at Room 405 at about 5 p.m. Wednesday. Two hours after he had left his room, bellboys smelled something burning inside.

The hotel’s receptionists said the man told them he was going out to buy something and left his room key. Ten minutes before he left, they heard a dull thud inside his room.

"He was claiming to be an employee of the Land Transportation Office when he checked in and filled out the guest registry," a receptionist said.

Senior Superintendent Peraco Macacua, city police chief, said it was just fortunate that employees of Hotel Filipino, not far away from the city’s administration building, did not lose their presence of mind and succeeded in dousing the fire with extinguishers.

Macacua said only the bedsheets in Room 405 were eaten by the fire triggered by the incendiary explosive.

He said investigators recovered on the partially burned bed fragments of the battery-operated blasting device and two bottles of gasoline.