January 3, 2001, Sun Star, Grenade found in resort hotel, 

CEBU CITY -- A week after the bombing of the Islacom cell site in Sabang, Danao city, another bomb was found inside one of the rooms of a resort hotel in the same barangay last Sunday.The staff of El Salvador Beach Resort and Hotel was cleaning the rooms of the establishment shortly past noon when they found a live hand grenade inside the table drawer of room 101.

The safety lever of the grenade was fastened with an electrical tape, so that if the pin had been removed the explosive still wouldn't have gone off, Danao police said.

The grenade was found a day after five bombs hit Metro Manila, killing 14 persons and injuring close to 100 civilians, many of them children.

Cebu Provincial Police Director Jose Antonio Salvacion refused to comment on the recovery of the grenade. He said he still has to be briefed on the matter. He was still in Manila as of Tuesday for the Christmas break.

But whoever left the grenade perhaps did not intend to harm anyone and only wanted to scare people inside the resort, Danao Police Chief Lito Landingin said.

Resort owner, lawyer Salvador Barameda, said the same, adding that he has no enemy that could have wanted to harm him or any member of his staff.

Police said that before room 101 was cleaned, it was occupied by a group of four men and a woman who checked in Saturday afternoon and left the hotel the next morning.

The group registered under the name of Kokoy Fortuno. But a police check on the hotel's records showed that Fortuno occupied room 109 while it was his companions who occupied room 101.

The names of Fortuno's companions were not listed in the guest book.

Barameda phoned Danao police for help after his staff informed him about the bomb. A police team arrived later, recovered the grenade and brought this to the station.

Police proceeded to trace Fortuno to his house in Barangay Tuburan Sur, Danao city for his testimony. But the young man was not there, Landingin said.

The resort is only about a kilometer away from the Islacom cell site whose radio facility was damaged by an explosion last Dec. 23.

But police officials are expected to dismiss any connection between the two incidents, especially that they already have denied any rebel group's involvement in the cell site explosion.

Barameda said it was the first time a bomb was found inside his resort since this opened in 1986.

The military and the facility's security guards blamed the New People's Army for the attack while police dismissed the explosion as a mere result of mechanical trouble.

The PNP Crime Laboratory has yet to finish its examination on the debris recovered at the scene of the explosion.