Predawn explosion rocks residential area in Manila

(Updated 11:58 p.m.) A powerful blast partially damaged three houses and jolted the residents of a neighborhood in Manila's Sampaloc district before dawn Saturday. A report by radio dzBB's Allan Gatus said the incident occurred around 4 a.m. at the corner of Blumentritt and Sobriedad Streets near the Trinity Church. The explosion damaged the gate of Benjamin Velasquez, an engineer, at 1277 Sobriedad St. and shattered the glass windows of two neighboring houses. The Manila Police District’s Explosive and Ordnance Division (MPD-EOD) said pyrotechnics could have caused the blast, adding that it did not come from a grenade or improvised bomb. An initial probe by MPD’s Station 4 revealed that a man hailed a tricycle passing by the engineer’s house shortly before the blast. The tricycle driver told police he heard the explosion shortly after driving away. "Yung tricycle driver bumalik, may sakay na tao sa kanto. ... Duda siya ang taong iyon ang suspect, walang ibang tao na sakay niya sa kanto kundi yung lalaki," a resident said. (A tricycle driver said he ferried a man away from the area shortly before the explosion. He suspects the passenger to be the bomber. There was no other passenger at the site.) Chief Superintendent Roberto Rongavilla, MPD director, described the explosion as an isolated case, and ruled out terrorism. Saturday's incident came a day after tension gripped a neighborhood in Quezon City when village watchmen found a grenade left at the gate of a house there. A police bomb squad that rushed to the scene theorized the grenade failed to explode because it was already very outdated. Police said the pin and lever were no longer in place, meaning the grenade was ready to explode. Watchmen of San Antonio village said they were on their way home from a routine patrol around the neighborhood when one of them saw the grenade. One of the watchmen, Benjamin Balmaceda, said he even thought at first that the grenade was a toy. "Akala ko laruan, nilapitan ko (I thought it was a toy, and I approached it to check)," he said. — LBG/JV, GMANews.TV