Glorietta 2: accidents, beliefs, surprises, and relief

"The opinions for which people are willing to fight all belong to one of three classes which this scepticism condemns. When there are rational grounds for an opinion, people are content to set them forth and wait for them to operate. In such cases people do not hold their opinions with passion; they hold them calmly, and set forth their reasons quietly. The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holder's lack of rational conviction. Opinions in politics and religion are almost always held passionately.

The extent to which beliefs are based upon evidence is very much less than believers suppose."

Bertrand Russell in Sceptical Essays

My early doubts about the bomb hypothesis in the Glorietta blast arose after seeing the footage of the area and the anecdotes of those in the vicinity during the incident, and early reports that the blast had been determined to have emanated from the basement, and assumptions about the 'reasonableness' or cost-minimizing behavior of terrorists, and the materials and equipment the basement was said to contain. For example, why would terrorists plant a bomb in the basement (one investigator speculated that 10 kilos of C4 could have been used) when much more impact could be expected at better locations?)

In my earlier post, I said:

I have not closed my mind to a methane-based explosion, more consistent with the footage I’ve seen. Likely I will be proven wrong.

At least three media reports today tend to lend more support to the accident hypothesis: the Inquirer's, ABS-CBN's, and GMA.tv's investigators doubt bomb theory. What stands out in all these reports are the early signs of NCR police director Geary Barias's independence. Whether this is due to character or fear of being contradicted by parallel efforts of foreign investigative agencies, it is still a hopeful sign that the real facts will come out from the official probe. We must aslo note that Barias's refusal to rule out the accident hypothesis appears to be a direct and courageous contradiction of the Gloria and the Venable and silly national security adviser, who claimed that terrorists were on a fund-raising effort by way of demonstration, perversely trying to make political hay out of the tragedy. Surprisingly too, Senator Panfilo Lacson, whose democratic impulses I doubt, counseled circumspection and sobriety in contrast to the amateurish, naive and messianic Senator Trillanes, whose belief in the incredible Operation Greenbase made me cringe in disbelief. (Disclosure: Geary Barias's activist brother Manny, with a medical practice in the US, is a long-time friend).

Here's part of GMA.tv's report:

On whether the blast might have been caused by other factors besides a bomb, Barias said "anything is possible."

He said investigators confirmed that the origin of the explosion was located at the basement of the Glorietta 2 and not on the first floor.

Barias said there was a possibility that the blast was caused by an accident rather than an explosive device. "We are also looking into that. All angles are being explored."

Last Saturday before a National Security Council meeting in Camp Crame, Barias told reporters that investigators took samples from the first floor and found no trace of nitrates.

"The explosion damaged the floor, under which revealed an underground which serves as a tool room. There was supposed to have been an oil, water, and grease depot there," Barias said then.

Later in that meeting, the PNP Crime Laboratory and the Philippine National Police (PNP) Bomb Data Center said they found traces of RDX, an ingredient used in explosives including C4 which is used by the military.

But on Sunday, Barias said that the presence of RDX would have to be verified by "additional testing."

In a television interview, Alfie Reyes, corporate spokesman of Ayala Land Inc. which owns the mall, said he would leave the issue of what caused the blast to investigators.

He clarified that the basement where the blast might have originated was being occupied by one of their tenants at the Makati Supermarket. "We are also trying to obtain information from them because they are the ones who know what is in that basement and what activities, if any, occurred in that basement," Reyes said.

He added that the Makati Supermarket had access and security control over the basement.

An investigator at the area told the Philippine Daily Inquirer Sunday afternoon that tests done by bomb experts from the US revealed no traces of RDX or any other explosive material. "Their results are negative for any solid explosive material. They have a different style [of detecting RDX]."

The investigator, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to reveal details of the investigation, also explained that the Americans took a swab sample of the explosive material from the bombsite and smudged it on the TV screen of an analysis machine which gave them a chemical composition of the sample. "We asked them to calibrate their machine and try again. They still got a negative result," the source said.

The PNP Crime Laboratory, on the other hand, drops a certain liquid into debris recovered from the bombsite. "When the sample turns a certain color, then it will indicate the kind of chemicals present. But it could be that the samples are contaminated," the source said.

The source said that at least six Americans from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the US Navy Seals and an Explosive Ordnance Division (EOD) unit have been helping out in the probe. Later in the afternoon, experts from Australia also arrived.

The American experts, the source said, tested six samples from different locations at least three times. "There were samples taken from 500 meters from the blast site and also at the seat or source of the blasts, in this case the hole that was caused."

He also confirmed that the blast originated from a bunker oil container the size of a 20-foot container van located near a septic tank. The area also contained aircon exhaust vents, a generator set, empty diesel tanks, and fuel that might have emitted dangerous fumes.

"The confluence of the mixture of gases trapped inside a confined space will look for an outlet and needs release," the expert said.

The source also noted that the blast did not cause fire, as compared to explosions caused by C4 or TNT which would cause black or gray smoke. "The kind of damage we saw is consistent with enormous pressure being released. Gases like methane don't show up in the kind of tests already done," said the source.

The source said investigators should be finished with their probe of the basement before midnight Sunday.

I heard the interview by ANC's Lia Andanar Yu of Ayala Land spokesperson Alfie Reyes, and it was apparent that he was already laying the groundwork for a legal defense against what could be a large liability suit. He pointed out that the basement was under the control of the tenant, Makati Supermarket. I wonder what else were in the basement aside from a 4000-liter diesel tank, a waste oil/water separator (I suppose a centrifuge; having worked in a diesel power plant ages ago, I know how such things work), grease, and a septic tank. A very explosive combination.

Some pundits had seized upon a PNP chemist's hesitation about mentioning C4 as early 'evidence' of a coverup. But one test of one sample indicating trace amounts of RDX is far from conclusive. More than eight semesters of chemistry (basic, organic, inorganic, quantitative, qualitative, biochem, phychem) taught me that most tests have varying rates of false positives, when a test is wrong for various reasons, whether the intrinsic limitation of a test or the carelessness of a lab technician.

(Aside: It took me a long while to get over the fact that I tested positive for shabu during the last renewal of my driver's license. The colorimetric drug test (urinalysis) also tested for cannabis, and I was tempted to taunt the technician that the test was wrong on both counts. I did not because the technician had made up her mind based on my appearance ---profiling? (I hope you get this joke). Eventually, I refused to take the more expensive confirmatory blood test and asserted my rights and returned to the clinic, and without paying any additional fee, got a negative result. The other test mentioned in the GMA report, is diffusion spectroscopy, a much more expensive one but with lesser tolerance for error.
When I was with the Ministry of Energy in the early 80's, I was involved in the field and lab testing of the effectiveness of a colorimetric method (a marker dye added to the potential contaminants) for testing 'adulteration' of regular and premium gasoline with diesel and kerosene. If the sample tested positive, a second test, called RON test (research octane number which measures the anti-knock characteristic of a fuel) using, guess what, a bomb calorimeter, was used as a confirmatory test. Before the marker dye, the primitive method was a field test using a hydrometer to test the density (or specific gravity) of a sample compared to 'pure' gasoline).

What we really need to see are the hypothesis-testing protocols of the investigators, laying out a series of logical if-then-else statements. While it might be too much to expect that they would be familiar with Karl Popper's obsession with the falsifiability of hypotheses as a fundamental criterion in scientific statements, I am willing to be surprised, as I was with Dean Jorge Bocobo's post on gaseous deflagrations.

If the investigators eventually come to the conclusion that it was an accident, we might all be relieved to know that the Islamists and military rebels are not that stupid and that the Gloria is not that ruthless. Perverse? Perhaps...