2 more APO members linked to Bar exam blast

(Updated 6:18 p.m.) The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) has already identified two more suspects in the grenade-throwing incident that marred the last day of this year’s Bar examinations last September. The two are also part of the Alpha Phi Omega (APO) fraternity, according to Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, who urged the group, whose members include Vice President Jejomar Binay, to turn over the two other suspects for questioning. "I'm advising the APO leadership that the NBI will soon be coordinating with them. Please cooperate and turn them over to us for questioning," said De Lima at a press briefing on Tuesday. The two suspects allegedly helped facilitate the escape of fraternity brother Anthony Leal Nepomuceno, the primary suspect in the incident who allegedly fled the scene of the crime after throwing the grenade that injured about 47 people last Sept. 26 outside the De La Salle University campus in Taft Avenue, Manila. “The two other suspects who came to his (Nepomuceno’s) rescue when he was being ganged up on, have already been identified," De Lima said without giving the names of the two. She also asked the NBI to coordinate with the APO lawyers who brought Nepomuceno to them last week. De Lima said the two suspects may be charged as “co-principals, depending on the extent of their involvement." The NBI had already filed a criminal complaint against Nepomuceno, whom Binay turned over to them Wednesday last week, so he can be charged for multiple frustrated murder and multiple attempted murder. Law regulating frat activities The “fraternity war" angle is among the possible leads in the Bar exam violence, although it has not been established whether warring fraternities were indeed responsible for the grenade-throwing incident. In light of this, De Lima said a law should be passed to regulate activities of fraternities and sororities. She noted that fraternities may also be responsible for the grenade attacks at the La Consolacion College in Manila in 2008 and at the University of Perpetual Help in Las Pinas City in March this year. De Lima said she had ordered the NBI to determine whether the two grenade attacks are correlated to the post-Bar examinations blast. “It's really time to consider some legislation on the matter of regulation and monitoring the activities of fraternities and sororities... Because of these incidents — the undergraduates, the bolder ones, are prone to trouble-making — there should be some law," said De Lima, herself a founder of Lambda Rho Sigma, a sorority based at the San Beda law school where she earned her law degree. De Lima also said the law should also impose command responsibility for elders of fraternities whose members become errant. – KBK, GMANews.TV