The Philippine National Police (PNP) maintained that there was no further threat to the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Senate following the recovery of suspected improvised explosive devices (IEDs) outside the two buildings.
‘It’s still under investigation, the IEDs we saw,’ PNP public information chief Col. Allen Rae Co said in a press briefing in Camp Crame on Tuesday.
‘The area’s been secured. There is no further threat, especially to the area concerned,’ he noted. The suspected IED outside the DOJ exploded past midnight on Monday, while the suspected IED outside the Senate was discovered during a routine security inspection along the center island of Diokno Boulevard later on Monday morning.
This came hours before President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s fifth State of the Nation Address (Sona) and the opening of the second regular session of the 20th Congress.
PNP chief Gen. Jose Melencio Nartatez Jr. previously said the IEDs placed outside the DOJ and the Senate had a ‘big possibility’ of being connected.
Although Co noted that it was still too early to pinpoint a single individual or group behind the IEDs, he explained, ‘The timing, the placing, they were both somewhat placed at the same time.’
‘Perhaps, there is no other reason but to create fear during the day itself, before the president’s Sona,’ he added. ‘That’s the most logical we can think of.’
As for the Senate, which has its own sergeant-at-arms, Co said the PNP continued to monitor security outside the chamber’s premises since tensions began over a leadership dispute last May.
‘Perhaps, we will make some small tweaks or adjustments to deal with this new threat,’ he added. /das