We all know that various interest groups as well as the Government try to manipulate the mass media. I wonder if this is an example:

INQ7: MARIVELES, Bataan, Philippines — (UPDATE) A MINOR explosion damaged the concrete wall of a National Transmission Corp. (Transco) transformer in the Bataan Economic Zone (BEZ) midnight Thursday.

Why would anyone use explosives (improvised or not) to blow a hole in a concrete wall? If they wanted to damage facilities, they would have attached the explosives to the power pole right next to the station.

Unless, of course, they didn’t want to cause real damage that would interrupt service. Maybe they just wanted to generate a news report of an “explosion”.

If the explosion was so MINOR (noticed they used all uppercase on that word), why are they “securing” other power facilities? Why didn’t the reporter, Greg Refraccion, ask questions along these lines?

[Update: Hmmmm … on second thought … maybe this

is why.