TACLOBAN CITY – Ormoc city hall employees were asked to evacuate after a bomb threat was received Wednesday afternoon, December 7.

A staff from the city mayor’s office allegedly received a text message at 1:34 P.M. warning that the suspects put a bomb in the city hall that will explode in an hour.

The bomb threat was received in time for the supposed Regional Development Council meeting chaired by City Mayor Lucy Torres-Gomez but was postponed.

After the evacuation, Ormoc City Police Director Nelvin Ricohermoso took over to check and secure the Ormoc City Hall. K9 units and the Army also conducted a bomb search while investigating the incident.

Work was also suspended in the afternoon. However, after a few hours, at 5:35 PM, the Ormoc City Police Office declared the Ormoc City Hall to be “cleared and secured”; and in a statement of LGU-Ormoc posted on its official Facebook Page, the City Government of Ormoc, it expressed its gratitude to the “men and women in uniform whose prompt responsiveness and composite efforts made the entire process (from the evacuation to the declaration) in order. By Marie Tonette Marticio (EV Mail December 5-11, 2022 issue)