Tulfo seeks stiffer penalties vs bomb jokes

Sen. Raffy Tulfo has filed Senate Bill No. 2768 seeking to impose stiff penalties on crimes involving the dissemination of false information on bomb threats, explosives or any other life-threatening or destructive materials.

Tulfo, Senate committee on public services chair, said that Presidential Decree No. 1727 or the Bomb Joke Law passed in 1980, was no longer up-to-date. He noted that the Philippine National Police recorded a total of six fake bomb threats in train stations and 11 cases of bomb jokes in airports between 2023 and 2024.

“The recent wave of bomb threats caused unnecessary disturbances and inconvenience in schools, malls, government offices, trains, airports and similar crowded places as each threat received … is treated as real,” Tulfo said. His bill prescribes maximum penalties of P5 million, or not exceeding six years imprisonment, or both, for violators. —TINA G. SANTOS