Four people were injured when a grenade was thrown and exploded in front of a business hotel Wednesday night in Zamboanga City.
Radio dzMM reported Wednesday the grenade exploded on Mayor Cesar Climaco St. in the town center as Zamboanga City Mayor Celso Lobregat was preparing to tape a broadcast interview seeking to calm fears of residents on possible attacks by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels.
Lobregat said the interview would ask residents not to spread rumors through text messages on possible MILF attacks in the city.
Nonetheless, he appealed for calm, adding that police would try to identify and arrest the perpetrators of the explosion.
Lobregat said the grenade explosion could be related to the opposition he filed against the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) between the government and the MILF, which seeks to expand the territory and powers of an autonomous region for Muslims in the south.
The injured were brought to the nearby Zamboanga Medical Center.
Bomb experts of the Philippine National Police were still on the crime scene as of posting time.
Under the MOA-AD, some villages of Zamboanga City are proposed to be included in the expanded Muslim homeland, but Lobregat and other local officials are opposed to the plan. -- JEWEL REYES, ABS-CBN Zamboanga
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(UPDATE) Seven hurt in Zamboanga City grenade attack
Seven people were injured when an unidentified man on a motorcycle lobbed a grenade at an eatery in downtown Zamboanga City Wednesday evening. The attack came as the city'smayor and other local officials continued to oppose the proposal to include some of the Zamboanga's villages into the expanded Muslim autonomous region.abs-cbnNEWS.com