To those MORONS who wanted to kill me: molotov cocktails are supposed to be hurled!

A few minutes before nine in the morning, our nextdoor neighbor told me that two improvised bombs were found near the entrance to our apartment. The first one was already lit up when the “barangay tanod” arrived. Good thing it was drizzling, so the bottles got drenched. The bombs were then taken by our barangay tanods to their office.

Upon hearing this, the death threats that my family received from Eugenio Ynión, Jr. and his brother Rommel came to mind in an instant. Could it have been their men who had those bombs planted? I’m not the type who immediately draws up a careless conclusion, so I had to make sure. I immediately went to our barrio hall to investigate.

It turned out that those improvised bombs were molotov cocktails. They were actually found in front of our neighbor’s front gate, right beside our apartment entrance where I usually drop off from a trike ride.

Popularly known in our country as molotov bombs, these are homemade incendiary weapons consisting of a glass bottle filled with flammable liquid, usually gasoline or alcohol (either methanol or ethanol). The mouth of the bottle is tightly sealed with a cork or other type of airtight bung (rubber, glass, or plastic). A cloth rag is then fixed securely around the mouth. The bottle is used by first soaking the rag in a flammable liquid immediately prior to using it. Upon lighting the rag, the bottle can then be hurled towards the target. The bottle then shatters on impact, throwing away shards of glass and spilling the flammable liquid over the target which is then ignited by the burning rag. The result: street pandemonium.

These were the molotov bombs that were recovered near the entrance to our apartment. And no, they’re not cherry flavored.

 

The molotov cocktail was named after Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov (1890-1986), not really to honor him but to spite his name. Today, the molotov is a “favorite” weapon during violent mass protests and gang wars.

But our neighborhood is not known for gang wars. No mass protests ever occur here. Our community is an untidy neighborhood, unkempt, and noisy because of hulking vehicles sharing a very small barrio road. Truly, a terrible place for a writer. Nevertheless, our place is a peaceful community where everybody knows everyone. Nobody here has a serious dispute with anyone within or without our community. And to top it all, this molotov incident is a first, at least in our barrio.

After filing a report to our barangay hall, I was escorted by the police and some tanod folks who recovered the deadly bottles to our local police station to personally present them to Superintendent Fernando Ortega who was already waiting for us. On our way to the station, we passed by our place again to investigate further. Reaching our place, I then asked some neighbors who were there if they had any dispute with other people. They confirmed to me that virtually nobody in our vicinity had a dispute with anyone. Nobody… except me. 🙂

I really couldn’t think of anyone else who is capable of doing me and my family harm. The Ynión Brothers, especially “Kapitan” Eugenio, are the only enemies I know. And if my suspicions are correct that it was really them, did they intentionally leave those bottles just to intimidate us? Or they hired pure buffoons who failed to get the job done?

So to the morons who want me killed, a piece of advice: the next time you use a molotov cocktail, hurl it towards me and don’t just leave it exposed to the elements. It’s not a weapon to intimidate — it’s a weapon. Idiotas.