12 injured in Baguio blast; gang war seen

BAGUIO CITY – Authorities suspect a gang war behind a grenade explosion in an Internet café in front of the Saint Louis University here Tuesday afternoon that left 12 students injured.

The victims, identified as Zela Shane Flores, Jan Robles Rafanan, Oliver Calarat, Tony Ategera, Mark Alvin, Peejee Iglesias, Edward Casulla, Alexander Quijad, Angelo Magsino, Alan Pangtilan, Leeroy Pagador, and MJ Calugdan, were declared out of danger by physicians at the Saint Louis Hospital.

Senior Superintendent Moises Guevarra, city police chief, said probers were still gathering evidence linking the blast to gang violence.

A witness told police that he saw the grenade thrower running away from the Anita Sy building on Bonifacio street where the Internet café, Kalchug Food and Drinks, was located.

Gang violence has been a major headache among police and city government officials for the past several months.

Mayor Reinaldo Bautista Jr., however, suspects that a love triangle, not gang war, was behind the blast, saying that gangs have invaded city high schools but not the colleges and universities.

The city council earlier mulled drawing a list of all local gang members amid the mounting violence, while Bautista vowed to use an “iron fist” against these gangs even if some of their leaders belong to prominent and influential families here.

Records of the city police show that there were 15 gang-related crimes from July 2005 to May this year, more than half of them happening in a popular nightlife hub east of the city.

Reports of street fights among rival US-derived gangs like the Crips, Bloods, North Side Terrorists and the like whose members are mostly high school students, have been flooding the police.

Last July, a Somalian student of the Pines City Colleges was shot by a member of the Real Palyah Crips gang at a popular bar here.

In April, rival gang members chased each other, leading to the fatal shooting of one of them in front of the Supreme Court compound here.