Press Release
November 5, 2007

KIKO HITS PNP FOR FAILURE TO IMPLEMENT NAT'L
SECURITY COUNCIL DIRECTIVE ON GLORIETTA 2 BLAST

Senate Majority Leader and Independent senator Kiko Pangilinan today challenged the PNP to present the FBI agents and Australian experts who investigated the Glorietta 2 blast in order to erase doubts of a whitewash on the explosion that killed 11 and injured many others.

"The PNP needs to explain the extent of the participation of the FBI and the Australian bomb experts in the investigation. Who are they? What are their names? How did they get involved in the investigation? What is the extent of their participation? Why aren't they going public? Why is it the PNP who's speaking on their behalf? Why won't the PNP allow their findings to be presented to the media?" Kiko probed.

"While we want to give the PNP the benefit of the doubt, we still do not understand why the directive of the President to have the FBI and the Australian experts come out in the open to present their findings has remained unimplemented two weeks after the NSC meeting," Kiko, who was present at the National Security Council meeting last October 23, said.

Amid allegations that the blast might have been a deliberate attempt to divert public attention away from the string of corruption and bribery scandals hounding the President and her family, NCRPO Chief Gerry Barias, National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales and PNP Chief Avelino Razon discounted the bombing angle on the mall blast. Saying it is more likely to be an industrial failure, the police retracted earlier statements from the PNP Laboratory Chemistry Division that initially declared the presence of research development explosive (RDX) on the explosion site, suggesting that a bomb might have gone off in the mall.

"Is government hiding something? The fact that these agents remain nameless and faceless gives us reason to doubt the truth behind their participation. We want them named and identified and we want the NSC directive complied with and that their findings be made public. If this is not possible then as a member of the NSC, I want a copy of their own findings and the extent of their participation in the investigation submitted to us so we can come up with our own independent evaluation of the said findings," said Kiko.

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