THE ATENEO campus has been declared safe following an emergency campus lockdown due to a bomb threat.

In an interview with The GUIDON, Office of Student Services (OSS) Director Cholo Mallillin said that the bomb threat came via text message and was received by an Office for Social Concern and Involvement (OSCI) personnel and the Associate Dean for Student Affairs (ADSA) helpline.

The OSCI personnel received two text messages at 8:32 AM and 8:49 AM respectively. The same two messages were received at 9:45 AM and 9:50 AM by the ADSA helpline.

According to Mallillin, the delay in the helpline’s receipt was due to “weak signal.”

ADSA has been restructured into the OSS and the Office of the Associate Dean for Student Formation since August 3.

SMS threat

The first text message read “pgdting ng ala9:00 mlkng psbog t2ma s ateneo dguan mga s2dyante nyu (At 9:00 AM there will be a major explosion that will hit Ateneo and result in students’ bloodshed).”

The succeeding message followed with “it2ya nyu b bhay ng s2dyante nyu (Will you risk the lives of your students)?”

Mallillin mentioned that the numbers of OSCI and ADSA are “fairly public” and accessible to many. He noted that the ADSA helpline is found on the identification cards of all Loyola Schools (LS) students while the OSCI personnel’s number is known “by a good 400 students” and members from partner communities.

He added that the university is coordinating with the Quezon City Police Department (QCPD) from Camp Caringal to verify the credibility of the threat.

Mallillin personally believes that the threat “seemed to be a scare tactic.”

As of press time, the source of the text message has been identified. In an interview with The GUIDON, Assistant to the Vice President of the Loyola Schools Milagros Tendero said that the QCPD and telecommunications provider SMART, “were able to trace where the message came from.”

She clarified however that the school administrators still don’t know who the person behind the threat is.

Emergency evacuation

Mallillin said that as early as 8:32 AM, the time the first text message bearing a bomb threat was received, the University Emergency Management Team (UEMT) “kicked into action in coordination with campus security.”

The UEMT was originally designed for evacuation procedures during natural disasters such as fires and earthquakes. The team is led by University President Jose Ramon Villarin, SJ.

He noted that the first step in the emergency procedure was to evacuate the students out of the campus buildings and then out of the university.

Mallillin mentioned that the protocols were set in place following the last bomb threat incident that happened on February 13, 2014.

At 9:18 AM, Mallillin called the attention of members of the university via the public announcement (PA) system. “This is not a drill. We have an urgent situation.”

He announced on the PA system at 9:57 AM that “we are currently on campus lockdown due to a bomb threat. Police are on campus to conduct an investigation of key areas.”

By 10:14 AM, Vice President for the Loyola Schools John Paul Vergara, PhD called off classes and work in the university. “We are officially calling off classes and work. We went with the evacuation procedures.”

Following Vergara’s announcement on the PA system, all students were asked to evacuate the campus premises to make way for clearing operations. Evacuation of faculty, staff, and maintenance personnel shortly followed.

Students were not allowed to retrieve their personal belongings or claim their parked vehicles prior to evacuating.

By 11:15 AM, the university was fully evacuated.

Amid the crisis, Tendero expressed gratitude to the LS community for cooperating during the evacuation procedure.

“I’m very happy the students cooperated. They were very patient waiting in the evacuation area,” she said.

Security response

Mallillin told The GUIDON that while conducting evacuation procedures, the university contacted the bomb squad from the QCPD to assist with the clearing operations and investigation.

Ateneo’s security personnel were already sweeping the campus grounds prior to the arrival of the QCPD. According to Facilities Supervisor Edwin Dungca, the foremost instruction to Ateneo personnel was to “[clear] the buildings.”

The QCPD responded by sending police officers and K-9 units to sweep the campus premises and aid Ateneo security personnel.

Tendero said that Camp Caringal Police Investigator Ferdie Paredes supervised the clearing operations held on campus.

Two clearing operations were conducted by the QCPD and security personnel of the Ateneo. The Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) was also there “as a support group,” according to BFP SF02 Amado Rivera.

By 2:07 PM, the university posted on its official Facebook page that the second sweep was completed and that the “campus is declared safe.”

Tendero cautioned however that she thinks “there will be changes in the security measures in the coming days.”

The Ateneo’s official Facebook post announced that classes and work will resume tomorrow, March 29. In the meantime, students are allowed to enter the campus to retrieve their personal items and attend to their parked vehicles.

https://storify.com/TheGUIDON/bomb-threat-detected-in-ateneo-campus