Bomb expert dead, 3 others wounded in explosion
Police officers huddle beside a long
plastic chair splattered with blood.
SPO3 Rafael Managuit was seated on the
plastic chair when a hand grenade he
was handling exploded yesterday
morning. RONILO L. PAMONAG
A hand grenade exploded inside a police detachment yesterday morning, killing a veteran member of the Explosives and Ordnance Division, and wounding three members of the Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team.
The incident highlighted the lack of proper protective equipment for police personnel handling explosives.
SPO3 Rafael Managuit of the Iloilo City Police Office’s Explosives and Ordnance Division was declared dead on arrival at the St. Therese Hospital yesterday at around 8:30 a.m. According to reports, Managuit’s face, chest, and arms were peppered with shrapnel. He is due for mandatory retirement next year.
Police Officer 3 Abundio Diaz Jr., and Police Officers 2 Roque Gimeno III and Albert Sardua Jr. also sustained wounds. Gimeno and Sardua were declared out of danger, while Diaz underwent operation at the Iloilo St. Paul’s Hospital, SWAT head, Chief Insp. Salvador Dagoon told The News Today yesterday.
Managuit and the rest of the SWAT team had just returned to their detachment at the Robinson’s Place-Iloilo when the incident happened around 7:30-8 am.
Before that, they responded to Brgy. East Baluarte in Molo district where they recovered a hand grenade and a rifle grenade from the roof of the store of Barangay Kagawad Yolanda Senato.
Senato reported to the police around 4:45 a.m. that unidentified persons lobbed the grenades at her house.
The EOD team recovered an M26A1 fragmentation grenade and a rifle grenade, according to Iloilo City Police Office (ICPO) director Senior Supt. Melvin Mongcal.
The team brought the grenade to the SWAT office of the City Hall detachment located near the mall. But it exploded as it was being examined by the EOD members.
Based on accounts of the wounded policemen, Mongcal said the explosion occurred while Managuit was finishing the documentation of the recovered grenades before they will be turned over to the regional police headquarters in Camp Martin Delgado.
'Plume of smoke'
PO2 Eduardo Siacon Jr., a SWAT officer, narrated that on his way out of the station to relieve himself, a news team from ABS-CBN was interviewing Managuit about the explosives recovered.
“I was walking back to our station, and was just a few meters away when I heard a loud explosion,” he said. The news team had just gone out of the detachment, and were preparing to leave when it happened.
“I heard a very loud explosion, and then I saw a plume of smoke come out of the station,” he recalled.
Then, Siacon added, he saw three of his companions stagger out of the station, already bloodied. The news team brought the three SWAT officers to the hospital.
After the smoke had cleared, Siacon said he saw Managuit’s body still seated in a long plastic chair, with blood all over, and somewhat reclining already.
It took some time before Managuit was brought to the hospital because there remained inside the station an unexploded rifle grenade.
The blast shattered the office's glass doors and windows and destroyed cubicles.
Expert gone
Police are still investigating what caused the grenade to go off in the hands of a trained explosives expert. SWAT members recalled hearing a click shortly before the explosion.
Managuit is one of the two bomb experts assigned with the ICPO; the other one is SPO1 John Meneses.
With Managuit gone, ICPO chief, Sr. Supt. Mongcal said that they will request for a replacement from the Police Regional Office 6. He has also asked Dagoon to look for a Managuit’s possible replacement.
Meantime, the city police chief said that Meneses will undergo a re-training.
Mongcal said that Managuit would not have died if he were wearing a bombsuit.
Maybe he would just be thrown off by the explosion, but the shrapnel will not penetrate his body, he said.
Mongcal and Mayor Jerry Treñas conferred yesterday regarding the incident. He said that the city government might, ‘in the future,’ purchase a bombsuit.
According to Mongcal, each bombsuit costs about P10 million. In the Philippines, according to him, only police in Makati City have a bombsuit.
Meanwhile, Mayor Treñas said in a telephone interview that the city government will give a P50,000 cash assistance to the family of Managuit, P40,000 to Diaz and P10,000 each to the two other wounded policemen.
He also instructed the police to ensure that recovered explosive items should not be taken to the SWAT office even for documentation and should be instead directly taken to the Army's EOD office in Camp Martin Delgado.