RP investigates shipment from RI

RP investigates shipment from RI

PHILIPPINES: Philippine officials said they were investigating a possible terrorism link to a large shipment of explosives, which was found on Thursday in a Manila warehouse and believed to have come from Indonesia.

Fire officers, police and agents from the National Bureau of Investigation raided the warehouse near the capital's seaport and seized about 900 kilograms of tetryl, a chemical used in a bombing that killed one person and injured 18 in the southern Philippines in 2002.

Customs officials will be questioned on how the "regulated material" entered the country, said Fennimore Jaudian, chief of the Inter-Agency Anti-Arson Task Force.

Arson investigators were led to the shipment after a truck loaded with sacks of the chemical caught fire and exploded, killing four people last month in Manila, said Reden Alumno, the agency's deputy chief of investigation.

He said about 45,000 kilograms of tetryl was shipped from Indonesia to the Philippines in November. He refused to disclose the shipper's name or the exact place of the shipment's origin. -- AP