One person was killed and 37 wounded Friday when a suspected car bomb exploded outside a bus terminal in the southern Philippines, officials said.
Investigators were still determining the cause, but noted the blast came from a car in Zamboanga City, 875 kilometres south of Manila.
“The explosion occurred in a car that was parked in front of a bar just outside the bus terminal,” said Captain Maria Rowena Muyuela, a regional military spokesman.
The explosion destroyed another car and three-wheeler and shattered window glasses of a nearby establishment, said city police spokesman Alex Mabalot.
Zamboanga City Mayor Beng Climaco said a 39-year-old man was killed in the blast, while 37 people were wounded and rushed to different hospitals.
Climaco said the explosion could have been an attack by al-Qaeda-linked Islamist militants whose plan to rescue some jailed colleagues was foiled earlier in the week.
“We are asking the Department of Justice to transfer these high-risk inmates because they are a cause of alarm for us,” she said.
There are at least 57 high-risk inmates, mostly Abu Sayyaf rebels, among the 1,500 prisoners in the Zamboanga City jail.
GNA