By Jim Lloyd Dongiapon
The Davao City local government, through the City Social Welfare and Development Office (CSWDO), led the commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the Davao Airport Bombing, a terrorist attack that killed 22 people on March 4, 2003.
At ground zero, the now-defunct Davao Airport building in Barangay Sasa, representatives of the local government, led by Davao City Mayor Sebastian “Baste” Duterte, Barangay Sasa officials, and families of the victims offered prayers, flowers, and candles.
In his brief message, Mayor Duterte encouraged the families of the victims to continue living in spite of the difficulties they had to endure over the previous 20 years and to lift everything to God.
A total of 127 beneficiaries, the majority of whom are the families of the deceased and injured, are still receiving aid from CSWDO.
14 recipients of assistance from the office’s program have completed their college degrees as of this year.
On Tuesday, March 4, 2003, around 5:20 p.m., unidentified men detonated an improvised explosive device inside a backpack near the waiting lounge of Francisco Bangoy International Airport’s passenger terminal building.
In the aftermath of the terrorist attack, 22 people were killed and 155 others were injured.
On the same day, two other explosions were reported at the Davao City Overland Transport Terminal in Ecoland and outside a health office in Tagum City, Davao del Norte, injuring three people.
The Philippine government believed that the bombing was the work of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), one of the groups that had led the secessionist movement in Mindanao for decades at the time.
The Abu Sayyaf Group, which had ties to Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility for it, according to one of its leaders. However, the Philippine government rejected their claim.
MILF later denied their involvement in the deadly attack.
The 2003 Davao Airport bombing was one of several terrorist attacks Davao City has endured over the years. The latest of which was the September 2, 2016 Roxas Night Market Bombing, which killed 14 people and injured 70 others.
Because of these incidents, the city has been continuously intensifying its culture of security through routine simulation exercises that test the ability of the security cluster and the public to respond and react to such security threats.