DAVAO CITY, Philippines, 5 March 2003 — President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and US President George W. Bush denounced yesterday’s bombing at the international airport in Davao City in Mindanao — which left 20 people dead, including an American citizen — and Bush said the US would work closely with the Philippine government to hunt the perpetrators down.
At least 150 others, including three US nationals, were injured when a powerful bomb ripped through a crowded waiting shed in front of the arrival area of the Davao airport, the busiest airport in Davao, at around 5:25 p.m. About an hour later another bomb exploded at a plaza in Tagum City in Davao del Norte province, a couple of hours’ drive away from Davao City, killing one person and injuring three others, the provincial government said.
It was the deadliest terrorist attack in Southeast Asia since the Oct. 12 Bali bomb blast that killed more than 200 people. The blast came amid increased guerrilla activity in Mindanao ahead of a planned deployment of US anti-terror troops in the southern stronghold of the Abu Sayyaf kidnap-for-ransom group linked to the Al-Qaeda terror network.
“The United States will work shoulder to shoulder with the Philippine government to make certain that those responsible are brought to justice,” a White House spokesman said.
US Embassy spokesman Ronald Post said that one of the four Americans injured in the blast died. He did not identify the victims. “This is a terrible act,” Post added. But Dr. Manuel Tan, of the Davao Medical Center, said American William Hyde died of his injuries on the operating table. Two of the wounded Americans were identified as Barbara Stevens, 33, and her 9-month-old son Nathan. They were brought to Davao Doctors Hospital.
No one claimed responsibility for the blast, but the military has blamed Moro Islamic Liberation Front rebels for a string of attacks, including a car-bombing at nearby Cotabato airport last month that killed one man.
President Arroyo said “several men” were detained in connection with the blast. She said she ordered police and the military “to hunt down the bombers and their accomplices.”
Davao civil defense spokeswoman Susan Madrid said the airport explosion occurred at 5:20 p.m. (1020 GMT) as scores of people waited for a plane to arrive.
“It was a very, very loud explosion,” Terry Labado, an airport official said. “I saw bodies flying.”
“We rushed out of the building to see where the explosion happened,” she said. “We saw many dead.” The city’s Mayor Rodrigo Duterte ordered all pharmacies and drug stores to remain open to supply medicine to the victims.
National police deputy chief Edgar Aglipay, who was in Davao at the time of the blast, told a Manila radio station that the explosion was caused by a bomb hidden inside a backpack.
Flights to and from Davao were suspended.
The rebels have been fighting for a separate Muslim homeland in the impoverished southern Philippines for three decades. Despite a shaky 1997 cease-fire, fighting has occasionally flared up. Last month, government forces captured a major MILF stronghold on Mindanao, prompting several rebel attacks and village raids that have killed dozens of people in the past two weeks.
Arroyo has approved a peace agreement with the MILF, but the rebels said they will not negotiate unless government troops withdraw from areas they captured. Last year, some 1,200 American troops were in the Philippines to “train, advise and assist” Filipino forces battling Abu Sayyaf on the neighboring island of Basilan.
