Council assails 'lapses' in Angeles bomb scare
By Ian Ocampo Flora
ANGELES CITY -- Members of the City Council have assailed the Angeles Police Office (ACPO) for its alleged lapses in handling the bomb threat at City Hall last Nov. 9.
The council expressed their dissatisfaction over how the ACPO had handled the "bomb scare" situation.
During the council's regular session Tuesday, Councilor Willie Rivera criticized the police leadership for what he called as "poor management" of the incident.
He alleged that personnel of the City Treasurer's Office and City Budget Office were "not allowed" to vacate their respective offices at the height of the bomb threat.
"The people from the city treasurer's office are saying that the Office of the Mayor did not allow them to leave their offices. If the bomb scare is really taken seriously then the PNP should have ushered the people out of their offices. I believe that the PNP should investigate further on the entire incident and why these offices were not afraid to leave their offices," Rivera said.
The City Information Office, on the other hand, said the offices of the city treasurer and budget were evacuated along with other offices when the policemen responded to the bomb threat.
CIO officials told Sun.Star Pampanga that skeletal force of the two offices were told to stay only after the Special Weapons and Tactics of the ACPO had declared the area "cleared" of any bomb.
ACPO deputy director Lorenzo Detran appeared in the council session Tuesday and reported to the councilors how the ACPO had handled the Nov. 9 incident. He said the City Assessor's Office received three telephone calls on that date about the impending detonation of a bomb placed somewhere in the premises of the City Hall.
Detran said they responded to the phone calls around 9:45 a.m.
However, on the same day the City Council was hosting the oath-taking ceremonies of Barangay and SK Officials. The incident, he said resulted in the "abbreviation" of the program and disrupted major functions in City Hall.
He said policemen had treated the incident seriously by clearing the building of its personnel until it was assured that the bomb threat was just a hoax.
In an interview with Sun.Star Pampanga after the session, Rivera said he was not convinced with Detran's report and how the ACPO had handled the incident.
"The way they treated it was not really efficient and, yes, I believe this is politically motivated."
Vice Mayor Vicky Vega-Cabigting also called the attention of Detran stating that the people present in the activities of the council were only asked to leave at around 10:30 a.m. or almost an hour after the bomb threats were received.
"There was a memorandum that on Nov. 8 there would be an evacuation drill in the city hall, but what is surprising is that there was a bomb scare on Nov.9 on the events of the council. Most people believed that the incident was already the drill," she said.
"There are lapses here that should be addressed, we only learned about the bomb scare at around 10:30. It scares me to think that there was already a threat to the lives of the people that we were still oblivious about it. I hope that people behind these acts should think first about the repercussions of these condemnable acts," the vice mayor added.
Detran, for his part, said he would be taking the issues aired by the council.
"We advise people here that they should not touch any suspicious equipment or material that they see in the premises and once a threat is identified the local police should be immediately notified. The PNP treats these things seriously," he added.
Despite the incident, Cabigting said the oath-taking of the officers for the barangay and SK post was already "legal" despite the "abbreviation" of the usual program.
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