No clues yet in attacks on N. Cotabato campus

NORTH COTABATO, Philippines - – Authorities are facing a blank wall on Sunday’s arson and grenade attacks on a government–run school in Arakan town that left 26 people injured, including firemen and responding police officers.

Investigators are still trying to identify the persons who could have set off the grenade as students, barangay officials, and firemen were trying to put out a fire that hit a dormitory in the Cotabato Foundation College Science and Technology (CFCST) in Barangay Doroluman, said Chief Inspector Rolly Oranza, officer in charge of the municipal police.

Oranza said bomb experts have determined that a fragmentation grenade, not an improvised explosive device (IED), was used in the bombing. He said they have tapped barangay officials in identifying the culprits.

He said investigators were certain the bombers could be the same men who set the dormitory on fire.

Oranza said the grenade was hurled near a fire truck parked near the torched building.

Last year, an IED was found at the CFCST campus, which was defused by responding Army and police bomb disposal personnel.

Sources told The STAR some school officials are reportedly squabbling for the presidency of the state-run CFCST.