Bombs Recovered From NPAs Can Blow Bridges, Buildings And Roads

On 31 March 2011, army soldiers discovered a cave believed to be a New People’s Army’s (NPA) factory of explosive devices at Sitio Kalinawan, Barangay Taocanga, Man-ay, Davao Oriental. 

Troops under Lt. Col. Reuben Basiao, commander of the 67th Infantry Battalion, found the rebels “bomb factory” full of items needed for the manufacture of explosives. The cave is under the NPA’s Merardo Arce Command wherein they harbor materials needed to construct improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and other explosives.

The impact of the bomb can blow a 5-6 storey building or even a mall, it can blow major bridges, and it can make more than 30 anti-personnel landmines or may easily blow buses or trucks used by civilians. These bombings can inflict heavy casualties to school children and ordinary civilians plying their main access routes where the NPAs lay their bombs.

The inventory of items found in the said NPA bomb factory are: two anti-armor IEDs, four anti-personnel IEDs, 3/4 kg. white powder, seven unfinished anti-pers IEDs, six unfinished anti-armor IEDs, 500 meters of detonation cord, 14 blasting caps, 700 pieces of liquid explosives, one set Stanley wrench, one electric drill, 20 pieces of claymore adhesive iron, two pieces of soldering gun, 10 pieces fuse, nine resistor sets, 10 pieces of ballast, 50 pieces of alligator clips, 29 switches, 11 pieces of dead man’s switch, five hammers, three mallets, one metal saw, four files, two tri-squares, one piece mold for anti-personnel IEDs, 18-kg. metal shrapnel, two sets of claymore molds, one tinsmith, one blow torch, one clamp, four rolls of wire, 300 grams of sulfur, nine plastic pipes, three liters of oil, six bottles of polyvinyl chloride solution, one piece port bypass circuit, one roll plastic hose, one weighing scale, and 22 bottles of acetone.