Improvised explosives seized in Cavite

TANZA, Cavite — Intelligence operatives have seized improvised explosives believed enough to blow up a building, police reported yesterday.

Superintendent Rodolfo Soriano, chief of the Cavite provincial intelligence and investigation branch, said the seizure of 46 improvised dynamites, sacks of blasting caps and several bundles of safety fuses here followed a buy-bust operation on suspected makers and sellers of improvised explosives used in fishing activities along Manila Bay, Lubang Island and Palawan.

A barangay councilor and his neighbor were arrested while another was able to escape during the raid on three houses in Barangay 4 in Julugan. Soriano identified the arrested suspects as Barangay 4 Councilor Bernard Donesa, 39, and his neighbor, Zosimo Gones, 59.

Seized from the suspects were 42 pieces of improvised dynamite bottles, 800 pieces of single blasting caps with safety fuses, 850 pieces of double blasting caps with safety fuses‚ 1,200 safety fuses 675 ignition wire and 5,000 pieces of blasting caps placed in a sack.

Senior Inspector Salvador Laurel, head of PIIB anti-illegal special operation task force, said the raid on the suspects’ houses came shortly after the suspects sold to police poseur-buyers SPO1 Fernando Garcia and PO1 Priolito Matro improvised dynamites sealed in four plastic bottles, safety fuses and blasting caps.

When tested at the police crime laboratory, the plastic bottles, together with the safety fuses and blasting caps, were found to be improvised dynamites.

Soriano said charges of illegal sale and manufacture of explosive devices are being readied against the suspects, who are now detained at the police headquarters in Camp Pantaleon Garcia in Imus town.