On Wednesday, October 26th, 2011, 19 year old Lobeto Ibanez laboured away under the hot sun. As difficult as it was working as a construction labourer in Zamboanga City's Barangay Sangali, it was many times worse to have no job at all. Worst of all would be to have remained in his parents' home in the small municipality of Sindangen, in Zamboanga del Norte Province. At lest this way Lobeto would be earning his own way, even earning enough to help out his poverty stricken family, as they struggled with the weather and the insurgency, trying to wrest a meagre harvest from their rented farm.
Landing work in Zamboanga City, he had been a labourer on a building site where a bank was being built, he spent most evenings just down the street from his job, eating lonely suppers in the small, non-descript roadside eater owned by Paul Toribio. A member of one of Zamboanga City's oldest and richest families, Toribio often felt he had gotten the short end of the stick, working seven days a week, often sixteen hours a day, and yet barely turning a profit. Even then he was being targeted by protection rackets, criminals offering not to destroy his business IF he would simply help his protector out with some pocket money. Toribio refused to oblige his would be benefactor.
On the day in question, October 26th, Lobeto Ibanez finished his long, dusty day and as usual, made his way down the street to Toribio's. Sitting at a table, Ibanez felt his knee brush a large rice sack. Pulling out his chair, Ibanez reached down and discovered that the nylon sack was filled with "camote," a common tuber found and cultivated on Mindanao. Alerting Mr.Toribio's son Jaime, Lobeto was asked to bring it outside the cafe and place it atop the small woodpile out front to make it easier for the customer who left it to retrieve it. Picking up the rice sack Lobeto obliged Jaime Toribio and placed it atop the woodpile. However, curiosity got the best of Lobeto and after making sure the coast was clear, he quickly opened the bag, and in doing so had his head blown off from an extremely powerful IED.
Ironically, as the IED detonated, the Zamboanga City Police Office (CPO), had had its EOD, or, Explosives and Ordnabce Detachment, deployed right around the corner from the cafe, less than 100 meters from that very woodpile. An IED had been left in front of a lottery outlet owned by another member of the Toribio Clan. Two curious bettors had quickly notified the CPO's Police Station #3, which has jurisdiction over Barangay Sangali. Station #3's Chief, Senior Inspector Elmer Acuna immediately phoned CPO Headquarters which in turn deployed the CPO EOD. While that first IED had been safely neutralised with a Water Phased Disruptor (a PAN, or Percussion Acentuated Neutraliser, a blasting cap detonates a bottle of water which then, if one is lucky, shoots into the device which such force as to ruin the wiring, etc.), the second device had killed Lobeto Ibanez and wounded eight people:
1) Jaime Toribio, 50 year old son of the owner of the cafe
2) Romeo Ebang, age 45
3) Rizaldo Rebollos, age 50
4) Natividad Taripe, age 75
5) Marie Karen Medalla, age 18
6) Elbert Manlangit
7) Rosita Toribio, wife of Jaime
8) Dodong Pitik
As the EOD realised that the lottery outlet device was only the first device, they called in a K9 unit from the CPO. The dog and its handler then located a third IED, in front of the barangay health station, a village medical clinic. Located in shrubbery adjacent to the barangay basketball court in front of the clinic. The device was also 100 meters from the woodpile, only in the opposite direction from the lottery outlet. The EOD again used the Water Phased Disruptor to neutralise the device.
Now on edge, the K9 unit spent the overnight period patrolling the vicinity for any other possible devices. At 630AM, on October 27th, a fourth IED was discovered inside a nearby grocery store, Toribio Minigrocery [sic], which, as the name might suggest, happenes to also be owned by the Toribio Clan. This device was likewise neutralised in the same manner. Further searching of Barangay Sangali discovered a fifth IED at 1040AM next to a second cafe owned by the Toribio Clan, "JRJ Toribio Eatery." This last device was neutralised in exactly the same way.
All five IEDs used ANFO payloads. Placed inside a small plastic container, which itself was placed within an aluminum m powdered milk can which was then placed inside a small, black plastic bag, which was then secreted within a nylon rice sack. ANFO, a simple mixture of common fuel oil and ammonium nitrate fertiliser, has become the substance de jour for the Abu Sayyaf. The BIAF, or, Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces, as the armed wing of the MILF is known, overwhelmingly utilises Compound B, the payload in undetonated mortar and Howitzer rounds. However, all four devices had a unique, advanced signature. Instead of using radio signals, such as from cellphones, these devices all used a collapsible circuit centering upon LED bulbs, or, Light Emiting Diode light bulbs . The power sources were all 9volt dry cell batteries in which holes had been fashioned so that detonation could occur one of two ways: Either from moving or jostling the rice saxk, which would then case the semi dry material within the battery to drain out, or else by neutralising via clipping the wires. A collapsible circuit detonates of you break the circuit. Philippine IEDs will either be command detonated- as with the NPA, or else they rely on radio frequencies with cellphones as the receiver. The use of a collapsible circuit is upping the ante, a creative bomber has entered the game here on Mindanao.
As for the culprit, the 113 Base Command's sub-Kumander Waning Abdusalam has been targeting the Toribio Clan for near on a decade. Yet, as noted in my previous Abu Sayyaf Fourth Quarter entry, the Directorate for Integrated Police Operations for Western Mindanao, or, DIPO-W, claims it is the handiwork of the long extinct Abu Sayyaf Urban Terrorist Group. It insisted just after this incident took place that it must be the BIAF, soup de jour.
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