NBI clears couple in alleged suicide bomb plot

The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) has cleared three persons who had been tagged in an alleged terror plot.

NBI Deputy Director Ferdinand Lavin said the agency is also considering the filing complaints against the person who implicated them but later refused to cooperate with authorities.

Lavin said the NBI had yet to find any criminal record on Victoria Sto. Domingo, the 19-year-old who showed up at the bureau to clear her name after an email sender linked her, her fiancé, and her mother to an alleged terror plot.

The anonymous sender is believed to be her father.

"As we speak, yes," Lavin said at a Tuesday press conference when asked if the three are considered cleared. "There is a continuing investigation into this."

Lavin said the office of NBI Director Dante Gierran received an email last June that claimed three suspected terrorist bombers linked to a bombing in Colombo, Sri Lanka, were coming into the Philippines.

The NBI was able to locate one of the three: Sto. Domingo, a dual citizen born to a Filipino father working in Saudi Arabia and a Sri Lankan mother. She voluntarily gave a statement to the counter-terrorism division after being informed the NBI was seeking her, Lavin said.

Lavin said there was a "very strong indication" that Sto. Domingo's father, who he did not name, had sent the email. He said the man had already "cyberbullied" his own daughter six years ago.

"The reason was that, according to her statement, it could have been perpetrated by their father, no less, because her father does not approve of her relationship with her fiancé and her father wanted her to stay in the house of the relative of the father," Lavin said.

"But when she got tired from staying there, she moved out of the house and that was about the same time, June 7, that was about the same time that the father sent the email to different intelligence agencies of the Philippine government," he added.

He said NBI counter-terrorism operatives reached out to the email sender but that the person "refused to provide further information and cooperate."

"And that is why we are thinking of possibly filing charges against the email sender, because you cannot just play around with the peace and security of the government," Lavin said.

The NBI official assured the public that the government is on top of the situation.

"We would like to allay or assuage the fears of the public. Everything is in good hands. Everything is under control," he said. —NB, GMA News