For lack of funds to buy high-tech, expensive bomb disposal gadgets, the Philippine National Police (PNP) has discovered the cheaper, equally effective use of bottled water by its bomb experts to dispose improvised explosive devices (IEDs) planted by local terrorist groups.

“We learned this strategy abroad but we are the ones who developed it further,” said Chief Inspector Silverio Dollesin, chief training officer of the Philippine Bomb Data Center, adding that they have to tap every available resources to continue to help in the promotion of peace and order.

Here’s how the PNP does it: After a bomb is found, police bomb experts would go on the usual process of securing it and making sure that people around would be in safe distance. The bomb experts would then placed a bomb-rigged bottled water beside the IED and detonate it, with the impact of the blast heading towards the explosive device in order to drench it with water.

“Because of the blast, the water inside the bottle would hit the bomb at approximately 27,000 feet for second, fast enough to disrupt the IED before its component could react to trigger explosion,” said Dollesin.

Dollesin said he learned the bomb-disrupting tactic in a seminar in the United States several years ago but made use of it at the height of the bombing incidents following the Rizal Day bombings in 2000 that left more than 20 people dead.

He added that after the gruesome terror attacks in 2000, they started forming groups of bomb experts in anticipation of more attacks in the future.

The bombings continued, especially in key urban areas in Mindanao, he recalled.

“This technique has been very useful in our operations especially at the height of the bombing incidents in Mindanao,” said Dollesin.