A Benguet election officer is in hot water after police operatives seized explosives allegedly in his possession at the premises of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) along Gov. Pack Road in Baguio City.

BY LYN V. RAMO
Northern Dispatch
Posted by Bulatlat
Election Watch
Vol. VII, No. 17, June 3-9, 2007

BAGUIO CITY (246 kms. north of Manila) – A Benguet election officer is in hot water after police operatives seized explosives allegedly in his possession at the premises of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) along Gov. Pack Road here, the city police director said last week.

Accosted for alleged illegal possession of explosives and violation of the gun ban is Dionisio Oya, Mankayan assistant election officer, and a certain Eugenio Diego, according to Baguio City Police Director Moises M. Guevarra who presented the seized contraband to media shortly after these were captured last May 30.

According to an operative who refused to be identified, police seized four boxes filled with some 1,640 pieces of Magnum .365 dynamite, with accompanying four boxes of blasting caps and several rolls of black powder time fuse in a buy-bust operation with some members of the national media. He estimated that a box of dynamite costs around P27,000 ($584.67 based on an exchange rate of $1:P46.18).

Capt. Amador Orcino of the Philippine National Police (PNP) Explosives and Ordnance Dispersal Unit said that one dynamite stick can blast a 16 cubic-meter ore and hurt persons within a 25-meter radius. He said that the seized explosives are made up of nitroglycerine

Although Guevarra said that the 100-kilogram explosives are more than enough to destroy a giant mall on top of Luneta Hill here, he clarified that these could not have been intended for any terrorist activities. “It could have originated from a legitimate source and intended for retail to miners.”

Benguet hosts two active mining companies, Philex Mining Company in Itogon and Tuba, and Lepanto Consolidated Mining Corporation in Mankayan. There are also reportedly small-scale miners in the province who have no legal access to explosives. Northern Dispatch / Posted by(Bulatlat.com)

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