Homeland Security

DATE=03/04/03

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=PHILIPPINES BLAST (LONG

NUMBER=2-300291

BYLINE=JIM TEEPLE

DATELINE=BANGKOK

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

EDS: WATCH CN WIRE AND UPDATE THE CASUALTY FIGURES IN THE INTRO AS NEEDED ///

INTRO: A powerful explosion has killed at least 15 people and injured more than 100 others at the main airport in the southern Philippine city of Davao. Another explosion occurred at a city bus terminal. V-O-A's Jim Teeple reports from our Southeast Asia bureau in Bangkok that no one has claimed responsibility.

TEXT: Witnesses at the Davao airport say the blast exploded in a crowd of people waiting just outside the main arrivals area of the airport. A number of people died on the spot and many others were rushed to area hospitals.

The blast occurred just minutes after a Cebu Pacific Airlines plane had arrived in Davao and authorities say the blast was timed to create the maximum number of casualties.

Speaking in Tagalog, the Philippines Deputy National Police

Chief Edgardo Aglipay says the bomb was hidden in a backpack placed in the waiting area.

/// AGLIPAY ACT IN TAGOLOG EST AND FADE UNDER ///

General Aglipay says authorities are still trying to determine what type of explosive was used in the blast. He says security has been increased at other vital installations in the area and a manhunt is underway to find those who carried out the attack.

Philippines President Gloria Arroyo condemned the bombing calling it, "a brazen act of terrorism that shall not go unpunished." She called an emergency meeting of the cabinet committee on internal security to discuss the situation. A spokesman for the Philippine army says authorities are looking at Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the communist New People's Army as potential suspects behind the attack.

Philippine officials blamed the Moro Islamic Liberation Front for a recent car-bomb attack at another smaller airport in Mindanao recently, which took place after government troops captured a rebel stronghold on the island.

/// REST OPT ///

Tuesday's attack took place just one day after the Philippines Defense Secretary said plans for a large-scale U-S military deployment in the violence-plagued southern Sulu islands may have to be altered.

The deployment, called Balikatan-three, was originally conceived as a joint anti-terrorism training exercise -- similar to previous exercises held last year. However controversy erupted in the Philippines after U-S Defense Department officials said more than more than one-thousand

U-S troops would participate in joint combat exercises with Philippine troops, to fight Abu Sayyaf Islamic Militants in the Sulu Islands.

Philippine opposition lawmakers and nationalists said the deployment would violate the Philippine constitution, which bans foreign troops from fighting on Philippine soil. (Signed)

NEB/HK/JLT/MH/FC