Suspects attempt to burn state university's building in Kabacan

NORTH COTABATO, Philippines - Arsonists tried but failed to set on fire an office inside the campus of the University of Southern Mindanao (USM) in Kabacan town on Sunday night,  two days after a grenade explosion rocked the campus.

The 6,000-hectare of the USM campus, a state-run university, is located at the heart of the Kabacan town in the third district of North Cotabato.

Supt. Jordine Maribojo, chief of the Kabacan municipal police, said two students near the building the two men tried to burn down using gasoline and torches reported what they saw to USM’s campus security group, whose members, in turn,  doused off the fire.

Maribojo said the suspects poured gasoline on the entrance to the building of USM’s College of Animal Science and fled  after starting the fire with lighters and improvised torches.

“Fortunately there were students who saw them perpetrate the arson attempt from a distance and reported to the university’s security office what they saw,” Maribojo said.

Responding USM security guards and policemen recovered empty bottles laced with gasoline scattered around the building and near the office of Hamid Imlan, chairman of USM’s animal science college.

The university’s security group and the Kabacan municipal police suspect that the same people could be behind the grenade attack at the USM’s motorpool Friday night and the arson attempt.

No one was reported killed or injured in the bombing, but the incident caused panic among students and teachers.

The powerful explosion ripped through the USM campus, hours after Gil Garcia assumed as university president. Garcia took over from a caretaker, lawyer Christopher Cabilen.

Cabilen was installed last year as officer-in-charge of USM due to the violence that gripped the campus for several months, triggered by the squabbles for the school presidency by influential contenders.