SOUTH COTABATO, Philippines - Probers are still facing a blank wall on two bombings that separately rocked Polomolok town in South Cotabato late Sunday and injured a cashier of a local videoke pub.
The victim, Annie Sambulao, 40, is now confined in a hospital.
She sustained shrapnel wounds when a still unidentified man lobbed a grenade at the entrance door of the establishment where she works and escaped using a motorcycle parked nearby as the explosive went off.
The grenade attack was preceded by an explosion along a national highway in Barangay Magsaysay also in Tupi, about 20 kilometers from South Cotabato’s capital, Koronadal City.
The improvised explosive device (IED) was detonated at the rear of a parked light cargo truck.
Responding police bomb experts found fragments of mobile phone and shattered casings of shoulder-fire grenades around the spot where the IED exploded.
Investigators said the IED was fashioned from grenade projectiles rigged with an improvised blasting mechanism attached to a mobile phone.
No one was hurt in the bombing, but the explosion caused panic in the surroundings and scared diners in a restaurant nearby.