U.S. to reopen RP embassy

U.S. to reopen RP embassy

THE PHILIPPINES: The U.S. embassy in Manila will resume public services on Thursday, two days after closing its doors due to a bomb threat, with Philippine officials pointing to communist rebels as the main suspects in the security scare.

Six other embassies in Manila's financial district -- those of Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Switzerland -- received similar bomb threats on Tuesday but did not shut down operations after informing police.

"It's not the first time these things are happening," executive secretary Eduardo Ermita said on Wednesday. "We have had a lot of threats coming from groups and the more important groups come from the left, especially the NPA."

Communist rebels from the New People's Army (NPA) are waging an insurgency in 69 of the country's 79 provinces but usually attack local officials they deem to be corrupt and businesses that refuse to pay "revolutionary war taxes".

While Ermita suggested the NPA was behind the bomb threat to the U.S. embassy on Monday evening, a senior police intelligence official on Tuesday speculated that regional Muslim militants were responsible, although he had no details of the threats made. -- Reuters