Investigators in the blast that marred last Sunday’s Bar examinations and injured at least 47 in Manila are keeping their distance from the possible involvement of fraternities in the incident, at least for now.
Manila Police District spokesman (MPD) Chief Inspector Erwin Margarejo said Saturday police are concentrating on “individual liability" and not the “fraternal colors" of the suspects.
“For now, the task group is focusing on individual liability. We don’t want to give any fraternal colors," Margarejo said in an interview on dzBB radio.
Besides, he said the MPD is not discounting a possible angle that the blast may be linked to last year’s Ampatuan town massacre in Maguindanao province.
Reports have it that a member of the Ampatuan clan, some of whose members are facing murder charges over the massacre, was among the injured.
“We don’t discount all possibilities. We treat all possibilities as credible. We are looking into each of them," he said.
For now, he said they are still looking into the involvement of at least three people in the blast. He refused to name names, at least until charges are filed against the suspects.
Also, Margarejo said they are conducting regular case conferences on the matter. Also probing the incident are the National Bureau of Investigation and Supreme Court.
“It is better to have a concerted effort where many agencies are helping solve the incident," he said.
In the meantime, he said potential informers can call the MPD hot line at 5245288 to provide more leads on the matter.
On Friday, another witness in last Sunday’s incident surfaced, claiming he saw a man act suspiciously just before the blast ripped through a crowd mostly composed of law students.
The witness, a 40-year-old pedicab driver and vendor, asked to be accompanied to San Beda College in Manila, his preferred venue for publicly revealing what he had observed.
He said he was riding his pedicab, going around Taft Avenue near De La Salle University where the Bar exams were held, selling beer in cans, when a man flagged his pedicab at around 5 p.m.
The witness said the man was a member of a fraternity, with the fraternity’s name printed on the shirt he was wearing.
He said the man brought out and then put on sunglasses, a jacket and a cap. He said he lost track of the suspicious man after a customer bought beer from him. — LBG
