Exhibit A (actually, Exhibit A-1 and Exhibit A-2) is what the Philippine National Police says caused the Glorietta blast.
Exhibit B is what the Ayala Corporation says caused the Glorietta blast.
And a 3-D Walk-Through of the Glorietta basement! How cool is that?
Bloggers like Tongue In, Anew seem more inclined to be skeptical of the PNP’s explanations, while other bloggers like Inner Sanctum (see his October 22 entry in particular) are not. See also, The Journal of the Jester-in-Exile.
Here’s what I find interesting. Now that the Governor-General, I mean, the US Ambassador, has spoken, it just might be that public opinion will shift, one way or another. The only reason I’m not saying public opinion will suddenly shift totally in favor of the PNP is, that the Zobels are involved on the other side, and you have another kind of colonial dynamic at work, there, as blogger Inner Sanctum seems to represent.
An effort to try to sift the evidence is in Glorietta Blast: Blaming the Basement, in Newsbreak (complete with a nifty diagram!).
As for me, I still think it’s too early to make conclusions, not least because a layman-friendly side-by-side comparison of all the available information, and the experts weighing in, has yet to be done.
November 15th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
Batasan blast – what’s this?
JDV was uncharacteristically too quick to point the accusing finger to terrorists or anarchists right after a bomb that exploded at the South Wing Entrance of the Batasan killed three, badly wounded other individuals, destroyed cars and government property.
GMA, on the other hand, appeared on national TV to caution against those spreading unverified claims as to who the culprit is to this rather bastard act of cowardice as she promised to go at the bottom of things on this incident.
DILG chief likewise theorized, albeit prematurely, that the blast was directed to Congressman Akbar as some weeks before this incident, there had been intelligence reports of an assassination plot. If it were something known to the DILG chief beforehand, had there been enough precautionary measures taken as would have precluded this bomb explosion right at the home-front?
PNP chief claimed to have known the owners of the two-motorcycles that were suspected as the bomb carriers, parked as they were near the casualties’ cars. The post-blast operatives appear rather too slow to make public its findings on what kind of explosive materials may have set off this tragic blast.
Against this backdrop, one might ask – what is happening to this country, Madame President? Is this not part of a larger scenario that would set the stage for a military regime? Could this not be the work of media genius to deflect public attention from the more mundane societal issues to the less?
Tri-media (TV, radio, print, electronic), as usual, now train their focus on this event as though the recent Glorietta bombing and the fatal vehicular accident that killed Atty. Saguisag’s wife have now become less of media value. The Congress’ payola, more importantly, has been hidden from public view. This turn-to-to-the-next-page practice in news reportage is really beyond comprehension.
Batasan blast and that of Glorietta really share a lot in common. In both, the cause of the explosion is not known till now. The perpetrators, likewise, are yet to be identified. The extent of possible damage of such explosions is basically the same – more casualties with more people, less with less. Versions, coming from independent sources, conflict with one another.
A viewing universe is at a lost – awaits only the more official theory on all these. Is there an emerging pattern of more explosions that would kill or harm target personalities, inflict death or injury to innocent people, create damage to private or public properties, sow chaos, intrigue, and all that? Are there paid mercenaries to pull al these tricks from their dirty departments?
Come to think of it, the blast inside the very premises of the Batasan Complex is not one that could normally be undertaken without being nipped in the bud. And this one, escaped notice. What is this? Even veteran coup plotters are not about the group that can launch such kind of an attack – right at the heart of Batasan. How then did it happen?
The assassination theory is a self-contradictory claim given that the radius of possible damage the explosion would cause is illogically too large. It is shotgun approach – and as such, could not have been directed toward a particular target. The theory of motorcycle bombs is an untenable one even highly stupid given that motorcycle riders are vulnerable to checkpoints. To blame the “tiangge” is another scapegoat to provide alibi for a possible serious security lapse.
In the higher scheme of things, it just might be a political statement. It takes away from our collective consciousness the otherwise fresh but issues of overriding importance at this point in time. The move on whether to unseat JDV for some indicative involvement in the issue of payola shall be automatically shelved for now. The equally pressing move to push the impeachment case against GMA will have to placed in the back burner in favor of what is neatly and skillfully projected as a better option given this series of explosions.
How indeed the Batasan blast was caused by motorcycle bombs when there were no footages at all of a single motorcycle torn into pieces? Why did the PNP remove all the fallen debris, flashed down with water nearly everything that should have been preserved as crucial evidence? The assassin would again be a fall guy just to close this page in history, pray tell.
November 9th, 2007 at 7:10 pm
It entered my mind and now just merely pure assumption on my part, that the Ayalas are giving starvation wages to maintenance men, so partly to blame for the blast as implied by Senator Enrile. Since the blast was determined by the experts to be caused by foul odor, it could be that the maintenance men could not afford to buy rice and fish so resorted to eating too much camote instead, resulting to the emmision of too much methane that caused the blast.
November 8th, 2007 at 5:06 pm
i think ambassador kenney is too quick agree with the accident angle. if it was indeed not a bomb but a gas explosion, who is to say that it could only have been an accident? a gas explosion can also be orchestrated or engineered. and then there’s senator enrile, so quick to blame the ayalas, when there are still too many unanswered questions about that blast.
November 8th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
It would be a shame on us Pinoys if the US ambassador would show care for the Philippines more than the rest of us. So, having heard the good ambassador speaks about the blast, my ‘obscurantist’ mind (term borrowed from viking) is enlightened, and, having also some tint of colonial mentality in me, convinced finally that a terrorist bomb is not good for the country, I now tend to favor the findings of the US experts. Having no witness testifying they smell stench minutes before the blast (methane from biogas smells like rotten eggs), I’m now sure that the Glorietta blast was caused by an odorless foul odor, never by an explosive device.
November 7th, 2007 at 11:49 pm
US ambassador Kenney’s statements are worth appreciating by all of us Pinoy, if only for the fact that she projects a sincere enough concern for us, consistent with her standing as a seasoned deplomat. If I may have to state my own interpretation of what I understand of what she said, here it is: She said that US experts have determined that the Glorietta blast was caused by an accident because it would be bad for the Philippines if it is caused by a terrorist’s bomb. Hmmm, quite an expert opinion by US experts.