Two bomb explosions followed one after the other, rocking two malls packed with Christmas shoppers in the southern Philippine City of Iligan yesterday afternoon. The Mindanao Examiner [1] blog reports: “The first bomb exploded at around 1.25 p.m. inside the Unicity Commercial Center in Iligan City and this was followed by another blast 20 minutes later at the Jerry Supermart in downtown Iligan City, said Army Lt. Steffani Cacho, a spokeswoman for the Western Mindanao Command.” Two were reported [2] killed and more than forty were wounded in the blast.
Authorities were quick to blame [3] the blasts as the work of “terrorists.” Iliganons were just as quick to react on the bombings in their blogs. The incident took locals by surprise. The blogger of Joys in Life [4] exclaims:
I haven’t heard any threats in the past days. Or we here in school adminstration did heard of one. So this happening is really unexpected. It’s Christmas and everyone was festive especially that today is the last day of classes before vacation starts. Tomorrow is Muslim holiday so it’s kind of we will be having long long vacation.
It was not the first bombing incident in the city this year but many, like WHAM Wannabe [5], are alarmed because of its proximity to the Christmas celebrations. The bombing had LinGZ worried [6] over attending her school's Christmas swimming pool outing. Mae prays [7] for her neighbors – vendors near the affected stores who were injured during the blast. PreMEDitated took a peek [8] at the hospital:
Had my companions and I decided to go to the College a little later, we would have been victims of the recent bombing in Iligan City. All excitement for the upcoming events in the Colelge melted away as we heard the story. Two were already confirmed dead. An unconfirmed number were wounded.
We heard the bodies were placed in the hospital just at the back of the College, and we decided to have a look at them. A crowd had already gathered around the place when we came. The scene would have just looked like an ordinary gathering except for a scream that effectively revealed to us the reality of the event.
Guardianspress shares [9] his close brush with death:
We were then plying the Quezon Avenue en route to the reported place and since we can not directly proceed due to the heavy traffic, however, we maneuvered our way and entered the route which is supposedly a one way traffic only passing the nearby Jerry’s Bargain Center which is more or less around 30 to 40 meters away from the Uni city where the first blast occur. I was then supposed to park my motorcycle in front of the said establishment when as if something pushed me to go nearer at the site where the first blast happened, thus, instead of having my motorcycle park at Jerry’s Bargain Center, I had it park in the opposite side of the road fronting the PLDT Office. Subsequently, around 30 seconds had just lapse after which I had my motorcycle park – when suddenly another blast erupted again and this time it was at the baggage counter of Jerry’s Bargain Center, the place where I supposed to have been park earlier. I was really speechless because had it not been for something that made me move forward then probably, we were among of those being hospitalized or being put into wake by now.