Police foil bombing of checkpoint in Cotabato province

GENERAL SANTOS CITY, Philippines – Authorities on Thursday, June 16, foiled an attempt to bomb a police outpost in Cotabato, a province that has seen a series of bombings in recent months.

Bomb experts detonated the bomb that was left near a police checkpoint set up along a highway in Pikit town, Cotabato province.

Major Maxim Peralta, Pikit town chief of police, said an explosion could have killed and injured a group of police officers that were manning the checkpoint.

Peralta said the police found the bomb in a bag that was strategically placed near the checkpoint in Barangay Inog-og at around 8 am, and they quickly called explosives experts for help.

Peralta said the bomb contained other explosive components.

The discovery sent police officers running for cover, and motorists stopping.

The incident caused a traffic jam on the section of the Cotabato-Davao highway.

Police said they have yet to identify suspects, but the province is the site of several bombings in the past months, the last of which was carried out in the same town of Pikit on February 6.

A month earlier, authorities raised the alert level in the Soccsksargen region following an explosion that killed a five-year-old child and hurt six others in a bus in Cotabato province on January 11.

The attack took place near a checkpoint along the Davao-Cotabato highway in Barangay San Mateo in Aleosan town, Cotabato.

Then a fragmentation grenade went off at a roadside checkpoint in Pikit two days later, but no one was hurt. – Rappler.com