Philippines vows to get culprits behind Cotabato bombing

Philippine President Benigno S. Aquino III said the government had been pursuing several leads and suspects in the explosion that rocked the southern city of Cotabato Monday afternoon. One of them is the possibility that there were those who want to derail the peace process between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the largest Muslim rebel group in the country, Aquino said in Tuesday's briefing. "Let us not forget that there are a few sectors that don't want our peace process to proceed," he said. The president said that he would be meeting with security officials to discuss the Cotabato City blast where eight people were killed as well as the Cagayan de Oro City explosion late last month. "Like in other instances, I'm sure that we will be able to get all of these culprits in due time," he said. Asked if the recent bombing could be connected on the global terror warning that the United States issued recently, Aquino said there was "no indicator" that it had something to do with the warning. The other angle that is being looked into was politics, he said. "So we are exhausting all of these leads with developing cases or we're investigating the same leads to determine exactly who perpetrated (it)," he said, adding that part of the assessment was whether or not to declare a state of emergency in Cotabato City.